Writers Write Is All About Writing
Writers Write Is All About Writing
Jostein Gaarder

Literary Birthday – 8 August – Jostein Gaarder

Happy Birthday, Jostein Gaarder, born on 8 August 1952.

Five Quotes from Sophie’s World

  1. Wisest is she who knows she does not know.
  2. What a strange world. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called ‘faith’. But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition?
  3. Life is both sad and solemn. We are led into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other—-and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.
  4. A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm.
  5. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ they yell, ‘we are floating in space!’ But none of the people down there care.

Jostein Gaarder Quotes

  1. I am really more interested in questions than in giving answers.
  2. I wrote Sophie’s World in three months, but I was only writing and sleeping. I work for 14 hours a day when I’m working on a book.
  3. To wonder about life is not something we learn; it is something we forget.

Jostein Gaarder is a Norwegian author, intellectual, and former school teacher. He is best known for writing books that introduce the history of philosophy and religion to young readers in an engaging and accessible way. His fiction often uses metafiction, weaving stories within stories to explore big ideas. His best-known novel, Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, has been translated into 60 languages and has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. The book presents the history of Western philosophy in a way that appeals to both young and adult readers. Gaarder was appointed a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and received an honorary degree from Trinity College Dublin.

Source for Image: Heike Huslage-Koch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jostein_Gaarder_Leipziger_Buchmesse_2017.jpg


by Amanda Patterson
Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: The Complete Author Birthday Calendar

Posted on: 8th August 2014
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