Stig Dagerman

"Once they knew each other it was more difficult, because it is difficult to love those we know well. To be in love is to be curious. A thing is only beautiful if we do not have surfeit of it, perhaps …"

"It made her pure, and those we love must be pure, otherwise we can't love them. But loving a person is also making her pure."

"Do you think I'm seventeen, he remembered she had said. Not very loudly, but she had said it, though she was not annoyed any more. It had sounded more as though she was sorry she was no longer sevente…"

"The only current happiness is indifference, the only current feelings are the very small ones, the only current thoughts are smaller still. The only beautiful things are small feelings. Commons sense …"

"When you're called up you don't need many personal belongings — not when you love either."

"Parents always live a less pure life than their children, because they condone everything they do. The ability to condone everything in oneself but practically nothing in one's children is the boon th…"

"One way of poisoning love is to mingle it with hate. It is the best way but in some ways the most dangerous. Love and hate are the cat and mouse of our emotions, sometimes the cat chases the mouse, of…"

"For anyone who feels our of place in the land of small dogs the only thing left is to become a big dog, and the only advantage in being a big dog is that one is not then ashamed of dying. Not even a b…"