Djävulsgreppet Quotes

“She doesn’t think, as in retrospect she should have, that people only know others through themselves, so if you’re worried that your partner will take up with someone else while you’re not around, then you’re likely to do the same.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Hun ser faren. Mørket som ville tetne rundt dem, byen som ville komme på avstand, de to alene i leiligheten mesteparten av tiden. Hennes lengsel, hans makt.”
― Lina Wolff, Djävulsgreppet

“Hennes själ kan skrika högt att hon ska springa därifrån, lägga benen på ryggen och fly, men köttet lyder inte själen. Köttet går sin egen väg och eftersom det är köttet som är materien är det bara för själen att följa med.
Efteråt vet hon alltid att hon har förlorat något. Som om hon gått runt med smutsiga skor i sina inre rum. Ett svagt drag i vänster bröstmuskel. Hon förlorar en del av sin själ varje gång hon låter köttet bestämma.”
― Lina Wolff, Djävulsgreppet

“Before the tremendous pain drives its awls into their flesh, she has time to feel this great relief and she looks Il pulito in the eye and hopes he feels it too, wants him to share in this understanding, to understand that the end has come, they are free now, and she knows that he would only need another split second, one split second more for the realization to take hold. But this does not come to pass, for in the eyes of Il pulito she only sees horror and pain and knows that she cannot warm him, she cannot do anything for him even though inside her she feels all the forgiveness that only a human heart, once more unsullied, can hold.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“So they weren’t trying to kill each other, she realizes, they wanted to kill us. And this is the devil’s grip, she also realizes, that’s what is releasing now, now that it’s too late the grip is releasing, it’s releasing right now, because she senses the words coming back to her, suddenly she can once again perform her recitations, è la presa del diavolo, es el agarre del diablo, the words have come back to her because the grip has been released.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Italy, she thinks, Italy. Everything else is irrelevant.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“The sun rises and sets. As it sets, it lingers a while on the horizon like a malevolent fiery eye, only to then be swallowed by the sea.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“There is no demon. There are only people. Confused, stressed, and thoughtless people, people who seek relief through their lust, their violence, their egoism, and their sickness. That’s all there is. No demon, no devil’s lair, just the two of you, the two of you acting like two monsters, nothing more. People, only people!”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Each year spent somewhere other than Italy is a waste of time, a waste of life.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Instead she winks at him and says that simultaneous interpreting requires simultaneous capacity. That is to say: no men.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“If you really want a good relationship with a man, you have to worship his dick.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“When her body dries up it will all be over. What will I do then? she wonders. Then she remembers that suicide is always an option, and the thought provides sudden relief.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“I’m only thirty-two,” she says. The woman chuckles. “Then you’re on the brink.” “Of what?” “The abyss.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Being a man, she thinks as she watches him sitting there, is like living in Guatemala. No seasons, no cycles, no swings—just sun and stasis in the body, seventy-seven degrees all year round. Being a man is like being a stowaway on the upper deck and simply enjoying the view. As for a woman, she’s struggling in the Arctic on a sputtering ship, its engines threatening to deadlock any second now, all the while she hopes that an iceberg won’t block her progress so she can keep sailing along for another few sea miles at a decent speed.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Il pipistrello. It’s a funny word. Murciélago in Spanish, pipistrello in Italian, chauve-souris in French, bat in English, fladdermus in Swedish. It’s one of those words that doesn’t connect with itself in any way.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“Focusing on another person’s pain is impossible once you’ve started to bleed like she has.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“...she also knows that the simple fact of having a thought can sometimes somehow give rise to a miniature reality of said thought, a reality that runs the risk of expanding and taking over one’s own.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip

“He’s harmless, repulsive to everyone but her. He’s a harmless little fatty. She will look back on this time and state (bitterly) that there is in fact no such thing as a harmless little fatty.”
― Lina Wolff, The Devil's Grip