Peter Høeg Professions : Writer Born : May 17, 1957 Browse All Authors Top 29 quotes by Peter Høeg There is one way to understand another culture. Living it. Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language. At some point understanding may come. It will always be wordless. The moment you grasp what is foreign, you will lose the urge to explain it. To explain a phenomenon is to distance yourself from it. Peter Høeg distance understanding moving I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself. Peter Høeg single loneliness blessing Do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing? ... The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something. Peter Høeg expression missing numbers To want to understand is an attempt to recapture something we have lost. Peter Høeg want lost If you want to support others you have to stay upright yourself. Peter Høeg support ifs want ..That's where we humans make a mistake. We don't see the utterly amazing when it comes to us disguised as the ordinary. Peter Høeg humans mistake ordinary We all try to camouflage the monotony. But it takes a lot of energy. To insist on being special all the time. When we're so much like one another anyway. Our triumphs are the same. Our pain. Try for a moment to feel what relief there is in the ordinary. Peter Høeg pain special trying I like him. I have a weakness for losers. Invalids, foreigners, the fat boy of the class, the ones nobody ever wants to dance with. My heart beats for them. Maybe because I've always known that in some way I will forever be one of them. Peter Høeg heart class boys The knives in my apartment are only sharp enough to open envelopes with. Cutting a slice of coarse bread is on the borderline of their ability. I don't need anything sharper. Otherwise, on bad days, it might easily occur to me that I could always go stand in the bathroom in front of the mirror and slit my throat. On such occasions it's nice to have the added security of needing to go downstairs and borrow a decent knife from a neighbor. Peter Høeg suicidal bad-day nice Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions. Peter Høeg adventure inspirational travel When my mother didn't come back I realized that any moment could be the last. Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left. You can demand something like this of yourself as an unattainable ideal. After that, you have to remind yourself about it every time you're sloppy about something. For me that means 250 times a day. Peter Høeg taken mother mean The fear for oneself, that one can do something about. Upon it one can turn the light of awareness. But when one is no longer worrying about oneself, then the fear comes for other people and, after that, for the world. There are no fearless people, only fearless moments. Peter Høeg light fear people I don't fall in love anymore. Just like I don't get the mumps. Peter Høeg dont-fall-in-love broken-heart falling-in-love It's these small differences in people's karma that determine if we get up or remain lying on the ground. Peter Høeg karma differences lying The body's pain is so paper-thin and insignificant compared to that of the mind. Peter Høeg pain mind depression Perhaps it's true that love is eternal. But it's appearance changes all the time. Peter Høeg eternal appearance love-is When you're young, you think that sex is the culmination of intimacy. Later you discover that it's barely the beginning. Peter Høeg intimacy sex thinking When you let your mind go blank,' he said, 'or when you stop talking for a long time, something happens. Time becomes different. It goes away. It doesn't come back until you start to say something. Peter Høeg mind talking long When we say 'time', I believe we mean at least two things. We mean changes. And we mean something unchangeable. We mean something that moves . but against an unmoving background. And vice versa.Animals can sense changes. But consciousness of time involves the double sense of constancy and change. Which can only be attributed to those who give expression to it. And that can only be done through language, and only man has language.The perception of time and language are inextricably bound up with one another. Peter Høeg mean believe moving Maybe it's wrong when we remember breakthroughs to our own being as something that occurs in discrete, extraordinary moments. Maybe falling in love, the piercing knowledge that we ourselves will someday die, and the love of snow are in reality not some sudden events; maybe they were always present. Maybe they never completely vanish, either. Peter Høeg break-through falling-in-love reality Similar Authors Ihab Hassan writer Ingmar Bergman writer Isabella Bird writer Ivan E. Coyote writer Al Feldstein writer Bert Sugar writer All Authors
