my childhood grew thin and flat, paperlike. It was tired and threadbare, and in low moments it didn't look like it would last until I was grown up. Tove Ditlevsen More Quotes by Tove Ditlevsen More Quotes From Tove Ditlevsen Memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life. Tove Ditlevsen library soul memories I fear / the place I have / in the memory of others. / They remind me of things / I myself have forgot. Tove Ditlevsen memories Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing. Tove Ditlevsen childhood laughing father [On her mother:] My relationship with her is close, painful, and skaky, and I always have to keep searching for a sign of love. Everything I do, I do to please her, to make her smile, to ward off her fury. This work is extremely exhausting. Tove Ditlevsen make-her-smile painful mother Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own. Tove Ditlevsen coffins childhood long my poems covered the bare places in my childhood like the fine, new skin under a scab that hasn't yet fallen off completely. Tove Ditlevsen childhood skins poetry