The Copenhagen Trilogy Quotes

“Meanwhile I am only twenty years old, and the days descend on me un-noticeably like dust, each one just like the rest.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“And I want so badly to own my own time instead of always having to sell it.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, Childhood, Youth, Dependency

“and I always dream about meeting some mysterious person who will listen to me and understand me. I know from books that such people exist, but you can't find any of them on my childhood street.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“I always think there is a mystical understanding between the moon and the street, like between two sisters who have grown old together and no longer need any language to communicate with each other.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Every person has their own truth just as every child has their own childhood.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“My classmates find me unceasingly, overwhelmingly comical, and I've gotten used to the clown role and even find a sad comfort in it, because together with my confirmed stupidity, it protects me against their peculiar meanness toward anyone who is different.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Slowly, numbed, I walk through the city's spring, the others' spring, the others' joyous transformation, the others' happiness. I'll never be famous, my poems are worthless. I'll marry a stable skilled worker who doesn't drink, or get a steady job with a pension. After that deadly disappointment, a long time passes before I write in my poetry album again. Even though no one else cares for my poems, I have to write them because it dulls the sorrow and longing in my heart.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“I'm gripped by the fear that I'll never get away from this place where I was born. Suddenly, I can't stand it and find every memory of it dark and sad. As long as I live here I'm condemned to loneliness and anonymity. The world doesn't count me as anything and every time I get hold of a corner of it, it slips out of my hands again. People die and buildings are torn down over them. The world is constantly changing - it's only my childhood's world that endures.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Who can ever understand someone else’s
love?”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“It's difficult to keep a grasp on yourself when things around you change.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Below his tired eyes there were deep smoke-colored shadows, and two wrinkles ran down his cheeks as if they were tracks made by tears.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, Trilogia de Copenhaguen

“Nadja, who is always hunting for a man, but always the wrong one, is trying to get together with Ebbe’s brother Karsten, who she would fit like a ring in his nose.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood – Youth – Dependency

“Till den som söker tillflykt hos en som är rädd och svag, nynnar jag en vaggsång mellan natt och dag”
― Tove Ditlevsen, Barndom. Ungdom. Gift

“That’s the worst thing about grownups”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood – Youth – Dependency

“Det är svårt att hålla ihop sig själv, när de döda tingen omkring en skiftar form.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, The Copenhagen Trilogy

“Dunkel ist die Kindheit, und sie winselt wie ein kleines Tier, das man in einen Keller eingesperrt und vergessen hat. Sie bildet eine Wolke vor dem Gesicht wie kalter Atem, und mal ist sie zu klein, mal zu groß. Ganz genau passt sie nie. Erst wenn man sie eines Tages abgestreift hat wie eine Haut, kann man sie in Ruhe betrachten und von ihr sprechen wie von einer überstandenen Krankheit.”
― Tove Ditlevsen, Kindheit, Jugend, Abhängigkeit: Die Kopenhagen-Trilogie