Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder
Jostein Gaarderis a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder about the world. He often utilizes metafiction in his works and constructs stories within stories. His best known work is the novel Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy. It has been translated into 60 languages; there are over 40 million copies in print...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth8 August 1952
CountryNorway
According to Kierkegaard, rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual's life. It is important to find `the truth for me`.
That fact that Athens could condemn its noblest citizen to death did more than make a profound impression on him. It was to shape the course of his entire philosophic endeavor.
We can't own each other's past. The questioin is whether we have a future together.
I wrote Sophies World in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when Im working on a book.
If there is a god, he is not only a wizard at leaving clues behind. More than anything, he's a master of concealment. And the world is not something that gives itself away. The heavens still keep their secrets. There is little gossip amongst the stars. But no one has forgotten the Big Bang yet. Since then, silence has reigned supreme, and every thing there is moving away. One can still come across a moon. Or a comet. Just don't expect friendly greetings. No visiting cards are printed in space.
To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget.
Moreover, nature's blocks had to be eternal-because nothing can come from nothing.
I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.
Where did the world come from? The question has an answer, even though I cannot get to it. It is a good question. It is like a crime that has not been solved. There is an answer, even if police do not know it.
What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.
All beauty that surrounds us must one day perish.
It was all too easy to make things up, it was like skating on thin ice, it was like doing dainty pirouettes on a brittle crust over water thousands of fathoms deep.
Life consists of a long chain of coincidences.
Then you have a big problem, because a human is a thinking animal. If you don't think, you're not really a human.