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

“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

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