The Other Name Quotes

“...there inside the person is what will pass away and become one with what is invisible in everything...”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“...what's beautiful in life turns out bad in a painting because it's like there's too much beauty, a good picture needs something bad in it in order to shine the way it should, it needs darkness in it...”
― Jon Fosse”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“I take another look at the picture with the two lines crossing, both in impasto as they put it, and the paint has run a little and where the lines cross the colours have turned such a strange colour, a beautiful colour, with no name, they usually don’t have names because obviously there can’t be names for all the countless colours in the world,”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“I think, and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences, but, yes, this is what happened, the pitctures I keep in the attic are only some of the bigger pictures because Åsleik chose all of the truly good smaller pictures and took them to give to Sister, yes, it’s a bit ridiculous, but he must see the same way I do, or pretty close, anyway there are lots of pictures Åsleik picked out and gave to Sister that I really wish I had in my own collection up in the attic, not all the ones he’s”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“what I want to show to other people has to do with light, or with darkness, it has to do with the shining darkness full as it is of nothingness, yes, it’s possible to think that way, to use such words,”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II

“how it has to be, it must have a meaning, yes, Our Lord must have given it meaning, they think, he writes straight on crooked lines, they think, or anyway the good Lord is part of it all somehow, and it’s the devil who made the lines crooked, they think and they hold onto their cigarettes and pints and then they pray a silent prayer, a prayer more like a look out over the sea inside them, wordless, but as far as the eye can reach over that sea the prayer extends, entirely wordless, because the words will be left behind, definitely, but there must be a port for people like them too, they’re probably thinking, and then they feel a prick of something like fear so they raise their pint and have a taste of beer, the good old taste, it gives them a sense of security, I”
― Jon Fosse, The Other Name: Septology I-II