So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch

by Karl Ove Knausgård

As a writer, in the actual moment of writing, an absolutely necessary precondition is to be able to disregard what other people might think, and to be entirely alone with yourself, your thoughts and what eventually manifests itself on the page.

Doubt and shame are social mechanisms, they come into play when a boundary has been transgressed, when something is done or said that shouldn’t have been. Art lives by transgressing boundaries, by going beyond what has been collectively decided, beyond what everyone has agreed to see and think.