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Top 25 Karl Ove Knausgård Quotes (2025 Update)

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “If you are disappearing from yourself, but you’re still writing, then there is a kind of activity of thinking going on, which in my world is similar to what’s going on in music.”

1. “If you are disappearing from yourself, but you’re still writing, then there is a kind of activity of thinking going on, which in my world is similar to what’s going on in music.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I have a longing for fiction – to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.”

2. “I have a longing for fiction – to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “Shame tells you when you’ve gone too far. Then you try if it’s okay to go too far. And it might be so that shame was right. You can never, never know that.”

3. “Shame tells you when you’ve gone too far. Then you try if it’s okay to go too far. And it might be so that shame was right. You can never, never know that.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “In modern novels I try to not let myself get away and to be here, and that’s why I write about my life and myself. But even when I do that there’s an element of disappearing to a place that’s not me. It’s “the selflessness of writing”. It seldom happens, but when it does it’s worth quite a lot.”

4. “In modern novels I try to not let myself get away and to be here, and that’s why I write about my life and myself. But even when I do that there’s an element of disappearing to a place that’s not me. It’s “the selflessness of writing”. It seldom happens, but when it does it’s worth quite a lot.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it’s possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It’s very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.”

5. “I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it’s possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It’s very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “Saying what you believe others want to hear is, of course, a form of lying.”

6. “Saying what you believe others want to hear is, of course, a form of lying.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “We live in the best of worlds. But still, it’s like we’ve lost something on the way to here: a sense of life. I can’t know for sure, I might be the only one who’s lost it. Maybe everybody else is living the now, thinking they’re having it well. Anyhow, that motivated me to write the books.”

7. “We live in the best of worlds. But still, it’s like we’ve lost something on the way to here: a sense of life. I can’t know for sure, I might be the only one who’s lost it. Maybe everybody else is living the now, thinking they’re having it well. Anyhow, that motivated me to write the books.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “For that’s how it is, we cover up our mistakes and failings, we invent stories that put ourselves in a more favorable light. Self-deception is perhaps the most human thing of all.”

8. “For that’s how it is, we cover up our mistakes and failings, we invent stories that put ourselves in a more favorable light. Self-deception is perhaps the most human thing of all.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “The strange thing about writing is that it’s so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it’s getting there to the point where it’s easy that’s hard. The hard part is to get there.”

9. “The strange thing about writing is that it’s so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it’s getting there to the point where it’s easy that’s hard. The hard part is to get there.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “If you are afraid of the dark, you seek the light. But what do you do when even the light is filled with terrors?”

10. “If you are afraid of the dark, you seek the light. But what do you do when even the light is filled with terrors?”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “For life, it’s very, very bad to be sensitive, but for a writer, it’s very good.”

11. “For life, it’s very, very bad to be sensitive, but for a writer, it’s very good.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it.”

12. “As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I’m not interested in the words or the meaning of the words. I’m interested in disappearing in it completely, to not be aware of yourself at all. That’s the way music works for me. It’s purely emotional. It goes straight to the heart. There are no explanations. That’s just it.”

13. “I’m not interested in the words or the meaning of the words. I’m interested in disappearing in it completely, to not be aware of yourself at all. That’s the way music works for me. It’s purely emotional. It goes straight to the heart. There are no explanations. That’s just it.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “You don’t think when you play music, you just try to play and be in it. It is the same for me when the writing is going really well. It’s the same kind of feeling. I’m just in it. It’s not the words, it’s not the sentences, I’m not aware of it. Then it’s good.”

14. “You don’t think when you play music, you just try to play and be in it. It is the same for me when the writing is going really well. It’s the same kind of feeling. I’m just in it. It’s not the words, it’s not the sentences, I’m not aware of it. Then it’s good.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “When I look back at what I’ve written and try to explain it, it doesn’t help, but it helps to be in a process of writing. It’s the same thing with reading – you lose yourself when you read as well. When I was younger I used literature that way, it was just escapism, a tool to run away from things.”

15. “When I look back at what I’ve written and try to explain it, it doesn’t help, but it helps to be in a process of writing. It’s the same thing with reading – you lose yourself when you read as well. When I was younger I used literature that way, it was just escapism, a tool to run away from things.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “National identity is a motion. It’s something you’re inside, you don’t get what’s happening, you can’t see it from above. And that’s where you have to write. You can’t see what’s happening now or what’s going to happen, so you just dive into it and write.”

16. “National identity is a motion. It’s something you’re inside, you don’t get what’s happening, you can’t see it from above. And that’s where you have to write. You can’t see what’s happening now or what’s going to happen, so you just dive into it and write.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that’s when you can write.”

17. “Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that’s when you can write.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “For me, personally, it is very important that the days are exactly the same, so I have routines. I do the same thing every day.”

18. “For me, personally, it is very important that the days are exactly the same, so I have routines. I do the same thing every day.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “As a person, I’m polite – I want to please.”

19. “As a person, I’m polite – I want to please.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I think that the best literature has a core that you can’t lock to a time or place but that can generate lots of meanings and translations.”

20. “I think that the best literature has a core that you can’t lock to a time or place but that can generate lots of meanings and translations.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “What is literature an expression of, if not an otherwise inaccessible and in reality non-existent closeness?”

21. “What is literature an expression of, if not an otherwise inaccessible and in reality non-existent closeness?”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I never read the translation before publication. The most important things for me is that the emotion is captured in such a way that the feelings that are in the original are there, much more than the details, if they are right or wrong.”

22. “I never read the translation before publication. The most important things for me is that the emotion is captured in such a way that the feelings that are in the original are there, much more than the details, if they are right or wrong.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I saw life; I thought about death.”

23. “I saw life; I thought about death.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that’s the level I want to be at when I’m writing. Writing is much more intellectual and indirect and abstract, in a way.”

24. “I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that’s the level I want to be at when I’m writing. Writing is much more intellectual and indirect and abstract, in a way.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “It is never easy to confront life-changing news, especially when you are deeply embroiled in the everyday and the banal, which we always are. They absorb almost everything, make almost everything small, apart from the few events that are so immense that they lay waste to all the everyday trivia around you.”

25. “It is never easy to confront life-changing news, especially when you are deeply embroiled in the everyday and the banal, which we always are. They absorb almost everything, make almost everything small, apart from the few events that are so immense that they lay waste to all the everyday trivia around you.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Karl Ove Knausgård Quote: “Here he stands before me as he was, in midlife, and perhaps that is why reading them is so painful for me, he wasn’t only much more than my feelings for him but infinitely more, a complete and living person in the midst of his life.”

26. “Here he stands before me as he was, in midlife, and perhaps that is why reading them is so painful for me, he wasn’t only much more than my feelings for him but infinitely more, a complete and living person in the midst of his life.”

— Karl Ove Knausgård

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