Tomas Tranströmer Quotes
It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
Tomas Tranströmer (After a Death)
Music is like a glass-house, where pebbles are flying everywhere and rocks rolling around. The rocks roll straight through and still no glass is ever found undone..
Tomas Tranströmer
Time is not a straight line, but more like a labyrinth.
Tomas Tranströmer
Something wants to be said, but my words refuses to obey.
Tomas Tranströmer
In day's first hours consciousness can grasp the world
as the hand grips a sun-warmed stone.
Tomas Tranströmer
Some books can only be read in the dark.
Tomas Tranströmer
The seed is kicking the soil.
Tomas Tranströmer
The truth is on the ground, but no one dares to claim it. The truth is on the street, and no one makes it his.
Tomas Tranströmer (För Levande och Döda - Air Mail, 1989)
There is rain above my ceilings and I'm a rain gutter for impressions.
Tomas Tranströmer
Two truths are colliding. One is from within and the other from without. Where they meet, you have the chance of getting a glimpse of what you're about.
Tomas Tranströmer
In the middle of life, it so happens that death comes and overwhelms man. But that visit is soon forgotten and life goes on. The garb continues to be sown.
Tomas Tranströmer (17 Poems, 1954)
This woman is buying and buying things to throw at the void that is quietly approaching her from behind.
Tomas Tranströmer
I am carried in my shadow
like a violin
in its black case
Tomas Tranströmer
There is a hidden spark in the forest that can only be found by the one who is lost.
Tomas Tranströmer
The sunset is creeping up over the landscape like a fox, and lights the grass on fire.
Tomas Tranströmer (17 Poems, 1954)
Blurred memories sink into the ocean abyss
and soon are stiffened into strange statues.
Tomas Tranströmer (17 Poems, 1954)
Sometimes a chasm emerges between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tomas Tranströmer
Every person has a door ajar that leads to the room for all.
Tomas Tranströmer
Time is no straight line but it resembles rather a labyrinth and if you press yourself to the wall in the right way, you can hear hastened footsteps and voices. You hear yourself pass by, on the other side.
Tomas Tranströmer
We don't really know it, but suspect it. That there is a sistership to our lives, that travels in a completly different route. All the while as the sun burns behind the islands.
Tomas Tranströmer (Det Vilda Torget - Det Blå Huset, 1983)
The buildings of capitalism, the hives of the killerbees, honey for the few.
There he served... but in a dark tunnel he unsheathed his wings and soared when no one saw. He begins to relive his life.
Tomas Tranströmer (För Levande och Döda - Epigram, 1989)
He tried to shout out under the water and the cold mass of the world pushed its way through his mouth and nose.
Tomas Tranströmer
I'm awakened to that haunting MAYBE that carries me through this volatile world. And every abstract image of the world is just as impossible as the sketch of a storm.
Tomas Tranströmer (Det Vilda Torget, 1983)
It hurts to go through walls, you get sick because of it, but its necessary. The world is one. But walls... and walls are a part of you. You know it or you don't but they are there... except for little children. There are no walls for them..
Tomas Tranströmer (Den Osynliga Väggen - Vermeer)
