Karl Ove Knausgard Quotes

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

I believe that art has been a vehicle for me that's been about enlightenment and expanding my own parameters, to give me courage to exercise the freedom that I have in life.

I don't mind finding these ugly sides to my personality and exaggerating them because that's something you can write towards.

I'm finding that writing poetry is strengthening my songwriting, because you're learning to make a piece of writing work on a page with nothing else. I was also finding within poetry I felt a lot more free to write about very different matters, to write about social issues or things that are going on around me.

The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in you. Once you get that out of your way, you can start writing books.

The difference of human being behind the guy on the page is in writing, I'm no longer conscious of personal repercussions because for that moment they don't exist. At times, I tell myself, Well, I can always go back and change that or take it out, and I find out that I rarely do. Couple little things here and there: Do unto others. Be a good scout. With all the ironies that entails, I go by that. That's a good way to live.

You are going to have to give and give and give, or there's no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.

I sometimes need to write things which I cannot completely control but which therefore prove that what is in me is stronger than I am.

Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to really see it.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

I feel like I've gotten to the point in my career and in my life where I can allow myself to write whatever comes into my head and not judge it too harshly.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

It is important to make your own stuff. Even if you are not an actor, it is important to not stop involving yourself as a creative person.

My writing was liberated once I abandoned acting.

I write based on powerful inner impulses, and those seem to shift over time.

You feel like a prisoner if you don't create. You're jailed up inside of yourself.

I've done nudity. I'm an exhibitionist. It doesn't matter.

I'm such a strong believer in making yourself happy. Almost in a selfish way. There are a lot of trends, and obviously you can get swept up into them. But I feel like if you just write songs you love, it can have trap beats in it or whatever's going on in the moment, but you don't stop loving songs.

I wanted to express myself more fully through writing and directing. It just feels like a package deal. Anytime you create anything, you try to exert mastery over your world.

There are parts of me that I keep secret even from myself. I have demons and I'd love to be able to healthily look at the demons and still be a wonderful actor and not feel I need them to create.

I think I've grown a lot in the last few years, and I needed to express myself as an artist on this. It wasn't necessarily about going in and making an album chocked full of hit singles... there were a lot of things I did out of the joy and the want to do it.

I feel empathy for people who are trapped in a prison of self-consciousness in an uncomfortable way. We can be free, but we're so held back. So perhaps that's why I feel a duty to make my work. I feel liberated when I'm doing it, and I want other people to feel liberated through it.