Stig Dagerman Quotes

Browsing in books as lovers do, they were only being considerate, because their tenderness to each other made them tender towards others as well. (p. 192)

Nothing is so beautiful as the first few minutes alone with someone who might love one and someone whom one might love. There is nothing so quiet as those minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet expectancy. It is for the sake of those few minutes that one loves, not the many that follow. Never again, they knew, would anything so beautiful happen to them. They would be more joyous perhaps; more ardent too, and immeasurably content with their own bodies, and each other's. But never again would it be so beautiful. (p. 190)

I come to understand what purity is: it means to feel something so wholeheartedly that it shrivels up all doubts, all cowardice and all considerations within one. (p. 199)

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. (p. 189)

To die is to become like a child, at last one knows nothing, nothing of death and nothing of life, only that all distances are equally long and all words unintelligible but beautiful. (p. 251)

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 is never beautiful. People can never understand that the only thing which makes the small dogs' position at all bearable is that the big dogs' reason can analyse it. (p. 258)

All my life I have, more of less consciously, sought an alternative way of life to his, one which is purer, one which is more intense and pays less regard to others, which is more exacting, which burns more dangerously, which gives one everything except a flabby happiness. (p. 200)

It may be true that death is a large empty hole and that sorrow is knowing just how deep the hole is, but it is only true when one is sober. If one has snaps one can fill up the hole with all the beautiful thoughts one can think of, and all the fine words one can hit on. One can fill it right up to the brink, and then put a stone there.<p>He loved her because she loved him, and if one is loved, one loves in return, otherwise one is a fool. (p. 30)

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 seventeen. (p. 187)

A little remorse they felt too in front of those who knew nothing, but it made their memories all the sweeter, for remorse is the best spice of all. (p. 243)

I'm tired of living, tired of living here in this land of small dogs, small feelings, small pleasures, small thoughts. One has to be satisfied, but I don't want to be satisfied. I won't be satisfied like a little dog, there's nothing more repulsive that small dogs when they come home frightened and satisfied from their small doggy adventures. I myself have been a big dog, but I won't be a big dog either, even if it is better to be a big dog than a little one. There's nothing between being a big dog and being a little one.<p>I have been a big dog because I have deceived you all. I have also been a little dog because I have deceived myself. In the land of small dogs we all deceives ourselves, we all dream of small doggy adventures, but we are afraid of the greatest adventure of all. The small dogs have a panic-stricken horror of living a pure life, for the only adventure which is not small, because they think the only things worth living for are the moderately dirty ones. In the land of small dogs indecency is worse than immorality, people there don't know that only one thing is immoral: consciously wanting to hurt somebody. In the land of small dogs, therefore passive evil is more respected than active goodness. (p. 257)