Linda Olsson Quotes

#1. When the sun dipped behind the wall of trees, we lay down and the white night swallowed us. It has been night ever since.

Linda Olsson

#2. Sometimes we are given exactly what we need. The precise people that you need the most come stumbling into your life. Sometimes you don't notice, and this is very sad. Sometimes you lose them again. This is sad too, but not as sad. Because what you have once had together you have forever.

Linda Olsson

#3. I had accepted that all the dark memories were mine. But I had never realized that the beautiful ones were mine too. I had a right to them. And the right to embrace them, regardless of what happened before and after. I had a right to my happiness, as well as my grief.

Linda Olsson

#4. I think that if we can find the words, and if we can find someone to tell them to, then perhaps we can see things differently. But I had no words, and I had nobody. - 153

Linda Olsson

#5. When I checked the other day, I found it - my strawberry patch - overgrown and hidden under weeds, but still there ... like secrets, like memories. You can make yourself believe that they have been erased. But they are there, if you look closely. If you have a wish to uncover them.

Linda Olsson

#6. She held me. I held her. We were one. (230)

Linda Olsson

#7. I have stopped painting. I stand in front of the easel, brush in hand, but my mind is blank. It is as if I have been struck by a strange kind of blindness.

Linda Olsson

#8. Unlike film, real life rarely provides an opportunity for a retake," Ben said. "Perhaps that is why I like film so much. But I do think we have to give ourselves the same amount of leeway that we give others. Forgive ourselves. Have pity on ourselves. And perhaps even love ourselves a little." (197)

Linda Olsson

#9. But once you accept the fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can begin to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them.

Linda Olsson

#10. I think that if we just listen to ourselves we know what it is we have to do ... And I have come o think that however much it hurts, however hard it is, we have to listen. We have to live our lives.

Linda Olsson

#11. My aloneness had never bothered me; I hadn't even been aware of it. But now it overwhelmed me. The awareness washed over me with painful sharpness and deep grief. Now that I had company.

Linda Olsson

#12. My life's memories take up space with no regard to when they happened, or to their actual time span. The memories of brief incidents occupy almost all time, while years of my life have left no tract.
spoken by Astrid

Linda Olsson

#13. I lay down on the bed clasping the pictures and buried my face in the pillow in a vain attempt at silencing my sobs. But it was as if all my life's accumulated grief had finally found an outlet and was allowed to take its course. I screamed, I cried, until the grief became bearable. (174)

Linda Olsson

#14. It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.

Linda Olsson