Quotes by "Per Petterson"

A dead dog is more quiet than a house on the steppes, a chair in a empty room.

But that's life. That's what you learn from; when things happen. Especially at your age. You just have to take it in and remember to think afterwards and not forget and never grow bitter.

... er tida en sekk du kan stappe inn i hvor mye som helst, går den aldri bare herfra til dit, men i stedet i sirkel etter sirkel, og så kommer du tilbake hver eneste gang til stedet hvor du begynte. Men det var ikke sånn heller. Før var jeg ung, nå var jeg ikke ung. Jeg ble aldri ung igjen.

I come from a working-class family. They're the people I know and the people I love, I guess. I do not write about them for political reasons, but because, as I see it, most interesting things - social, political, emotional - take place there. It's a bottomless well for an author like me.

There is always this quarrel about what is preferable: the straight, naturalistic, epic storytelling or the modernistic, disjointed, slightly hermetic one. To me it does not matter, as long as it's good. I like both kinds. Although the common reader seems to prefer the first, which is to be expected, and who would blame her?

'In the Wake' was a very bleak book. This relationship was not too good, the father and son. This time around, I wanted a father and a son who really loved each other, which would be visible on the first page and would still be there on the last page.

Living here where I live, on a farm way out in the countryside, in the woods, in fact, I have plenty of time to be alone, and I like it. I always have. I like my own company. And I am not the only one who feels this way; a high percentage of the Norwegian population feel as I do.

I worked in a bookstore in Oslo, importing the English-language books.

Philosophically I am, or at least have been, a follower of Sartre. I am very interested in the choices we make, or don't make, in life-defining matters. That moment of 'angst' and its consequences can be such a cruel thing.

At first I wanted to go to university, but I really didn't dare to. I was too self-conscious, being a working-class kid. It was really difficult. I was going to study history, but the professor asked me some questions I didn't understand, and I didn't dare to ask what they meant. I left university and went to work in the Post.