"They talked quietly, lying on their backs and letting the words float up to the ceiling as though they were talking to themselves. By reason of their calmness they could tell each other everything without shame, without its sounding like a confession. Nor were they surprised at what they found out about each other. (p. 191)"
Stig Halvard Dagerman was a Swedish author and journalist prominent in the aftermath of World War II.
"I am still fairly convinced that as a theory its true enough: to live, really only means to put off ones suicide from day to day. You have probably had some experience of this too; even if you are not able to put it into words, you must have been subconsciously aware of it. (p. 181)"
"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 cant love them. But loving a person is also making her pure. (p. 189)"
"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 ones children is the boon that "experience" bestows on humanity. What parents call experience is really nothing but attempts, successful to the point of sheer cynicism, to belie everything which they found pure, true and right when they were young. They themselves dont notice the awful cynicism behind this incessant talk of "experience" being the highest aim in life: they only notice "inexperience" in their children, that is, the form of inexperience called purity and integrity, and then they get annoyed. (p. 135)"
"I am sufficiently intelligent to be able to differentiate between real falsehood, which is aimed at hurting people, and a wise moderation of so-called truth, whose only object is to simplify life for all concerned. (p. 198)"
"Do you think Im 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)"