Quotes from Carsten Jensen

There comes a time in the life of a sailor when he no longer belongs ashore. It's then that he surrenders to the Pacific, where no land blocks the eye, where sky and ocean mirror each other until above and below have lost their meaning, and the Milky Way looks like the spume of a breaking wave and the globe itself rolls like a boat in the midst of the sinking and heaving surf of that starry sky, and even the sun is nothing but a tiny glowing dot of phosphorescence on the sea of the night.

War was like sailing. You could learn about clouds, wind direction, and currents, but the sea remained forever unpredictable. All you could do was adapt to it and try to return home alive.

With no other choices open to us, we'd turned our gaze seaward. The oceans were our America: they reached farther than any prairie, untamed as on the first day of creation. Nobody owned them.

Without discussing it with his mother, Anton went up to his teacher, Miss Katballe, and informed her that after seven years he was now quitting school. It was the best day of her life, she replied. With unexpected politeness he bowed, thanked her, and said, likewise.

No, Captain Madsen, you don't regret having had a child simply because you lose it. Having a child isn't a deal you strike with life. As I said: a child is a gift. And what remains after a child is gone is the memory of the years it was allowed to live. Not its death.

As he passed through the dining room, he stopped and took a white daisy from the bouqet his housekeeper had placed in the middle of the table..and put the daisy in the buttonhole of his summer jacket. Then he opened the front door and walked down the steps to Prinsegade, filled with the blind triumph that people sometimes experience when they've conquered their own better judgment.

So you've stopped thinking you're going to die? Oh, I'm more certain of it than ever. But I've stopped being scared.

He wasn't physically impotent. So the impotence must lie in his soul. Finding oblivion in a moment's ecstasy was all he could manage.

Loss was a night that never ended.

An unused conscience is no conscience at all.

Human beings are afflicted by a need to judge.

As long as our voiced were in harmony, it didn't matter that our accents were at war.

But hope stops time, and time only heals when its flow is not stopped.

the miller's hefty wife, Madam Weber, already armed with a pitchfork, insisted on joining the fight, and because she appeared more intimidating than most of us men, we instantly welcomed her to our bloodthirsty ranks.

At times he agreed with Anton: they were united by their silence. If they began articulating their thoughts, they'd feed one another's insanity and everything would fall apart.

From now on, consider yourself a con artist.

Yes, he was a rock she could cling to. But he was also a rock she could smash herself to pieces against.

Novels are about exploring unexplored territory in the human experience or, at least, drawing new maps of old lands.

Having a child isn't a deal you strike with life. As I said: a child is a gift. And what remains after a child is gone is the memory of the years it was allowed to live. Not its death

But he didnt want to be thought of as a fool. To walk around the town fully dressed and yet appear naked to the world was a shame he couldn't bear.

We swore that we'd die with our boots on. But then, that's what you do when you drown.

To Ejinar that cannonball was a monster with a will of its own. It showed him what war was: not a battery that exploded and sent matchstick soldiers fleeing, but a dragon that breathed hot fire on his naked heart.

Perhaps the greatest thing you can achieve is to love without demanding anything in return.

He felt Miss Kristina's presence like something poisonous and something infinitely sweet mixing together in his blood. Inside him, a lack of willpower and a colossal tension battled it out. He felt both weak and furious at the same time. He went around with his fists clenched, ready to fight, yet what he wanted most of all was to hold and be held.