At my age, you think about the afterlife. I’m mostly inclined to think there’s nothing there, but sometimes I can’t help but let my imagination run wild. My good friend Ulla Steen says she believes that all of us who like each other meet in the big angel bar where we are expected. I see myself arriving at the angel bar, and there’s my father, my husband and my son, and one of them says: “There’s Lise. Now we are four again for a l’hombre.
When you get as old as I am and no longer have a husband or dog, and the children have long since left home, you can sit and get a little wiser by thinking. Then it’s time to edit your memories and start looking at your life again. First come the regrets, then come the wrongs you’ve done, mistakes you’ve made – and all the things you can sit and brood over if you’re already in a bad mood. But you can also understand people and contexts in a new way.
I am a bourgeois, but I am not a Left-woman. I was born a bourgeois, and I have always tried not to stand on a pedestal and say that I am a worker. That would be false talk. Nor during the many years when the red hirelings were around and held their noses at the thought of “Matador” and everything else I did. I’m not a peasant either. I was born a bourgeois, but that is why I can criticise the bourgeoisie and their shabby schemes, which I can easily see through.
Of course, I have nothing against the language changing, but there must be reasonableness in it, so that it does not become a mere gas can. On the other hand, new words are sometimes added that I wouldn’t do without – for example, “smug”. It’s my new favorite word. It’s a wonderfully oily word, a precise word that covers a certain type of person with a high degree of self-confidence in their own abilities.
I am completely overwhelmed. It’s a good thing you don’t turn 100 every day. Even though I don’t have that much energy anymore, I still want to take a few more years.
In the past, we learned to cope with challenges ourselves. Today, a lot of people younger than me are not resistant to the vicissitudes and emotional challenges of life. If you’ve been told all your life that it’s the others who should spoil you and keep you free of problems, you’re probably a very sober person emotionally.
An amazing breathlessness arises because we fill our lives with emptiness and Facebook. In a discussion about the empty calories of Facebook, someone close to me said with great seriousness: “I have 190 friends on Facebook.” Then I replied: “Yes, but hardly one of them will pick up your coffin the day you leave here.” Why not use the time for some fewer and real friends in the real world.
One of the things I can’t get my hands on is something like “Mothers’ Clubs”, where instead of reading a book and walking in nature with their babies, they sit and talk about vomit and nappies and burping with other like-minded people and get nowhere. I think it bothers me a little in the women’s area.
My articles were based on something I wanted to change. Everyone has the right to a decent life, and I thought it was important to give vulnerable people support and confidence. I was brought up to respect other people.
Maybe it should have changed me more [to become a mother, ed.]. I sometimes wonder if I was at home enough with my children, but it’s no use now, because it can’t be helped. They have survived.
You have to take the wrinkles that come. And all those who get their skin sprayed and look like wounded warriors for a long time, become very little prettier, but look so sour. The smile is actually the best face-lift, I think.
One of the worst things that can happen to a journalist is a belief in authority.
I have a small walk-in closet, and it can easily turn into a recycling museum, so I’ve also learned to sort out. When you are as old as I am, it is very important not to get sloppy and wear boring clothes.
If we think that the way we live is good enough, then we’re completely wrong. You have to be able to doubt so that you can see that it can be done differently.
The pill is one of the biggest advances I’ve seen.
I don’t think you should think too much about the fact that time is passing and you’re not a teenager anymore. Then you just get plagued and get even more wrinkles and look even more grumpy and sad.
The women’s struggle today is an individual struggle (…) You can’t demand equal pay if you also want to have a long maternity leave, stay at home when they are sick and be there primarily for the children.
I was mortified that she disappeared before me, sitting at her writing desk, surrounded by classical music. A cerut in hand and a glass of whisky within reach.
In this house, I’m not famous. Because the dog doesn’t care. And my children hopefully appreciate me more for our regular interaction and conversations,
That’s one of the worst things about getting old. That people allow themselves to die before you.
There’s one thing worse than being boring. It is to be immoral