The Solitaire Mystery Quotes

“How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“A joker is a little fool who is different from everyone else. He's not a club, diamond, heart, or spade. He's not an eight or a nine, a king or a jack. He is an outsider. He is placed in the same pack as the other cards, but he doesn't belong there. Therefore, he can be removed without anybody missing him.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“As long as we are children, we have the ability to experience things around us--but then we grow used to the world. To grow up is to get drunk on sensory experience.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Our lives are part of a unique adventure... Nevertheless, most of us think the world is 'normal' and are constantly hunting for something abnormal--like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don't realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“There is always Joker to see through the delusion. Generation succeeds generation, but there is a fool walking the earth who is never ravaged by time.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“There are five billion people living on this planet. But you fall in love with one particular person, and you won't swap her for any other.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“I sat thinking how terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as incredible as living. One day we suddenly take the fact that we exist for granted - and then, yes, then we don’t think about it anymore until we are about to leave the world again.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Although you may not stumble across a Martian in the garden, you might stumble across yourself. The day that happens, you'll probably also scream a little. And that'll be perfectly all right, because it's not every day you realize you're a living planet dweller on a little island in the universe.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“I don't belong anywhere.
I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace.
As I am here - I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.

Every time I toss my head, the jingling bells remind me that I have no family.
I have no number - and no trade either.
I have gone around observing your activities from the outside.
Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind.

Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake.
It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw:
he sees too deeply and too much.


Truth is a lonely thing.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“If just one of [those people] experiences life as a crazy adventure--and I mean that he, or she, experiences this every single day... Then he or she is a joker in a pack of cards.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“A Russian cosmonaut and a Russian brain surgeon were once discussing Christianity. The brain surgeon was a Christian, but the cosmonaut wasn’t. ‘I have been in outer space many times,’ bragged the cosmonaut, ‘but I have never seen any angels.’ The brain surgeon stared in amazement, but then he said, ‘And I have operated on many intelligent brains, but I have never seen a single thought.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“I have gone around observing your activities from the outside. Because of this I have also been able to see things to which you have been blind... Every morning you have gone to work, but you have never been fully awake. Of course, you have seen the sun and the moon, the stars in the sky, and everything that moves, but you haven't really seen it at all. It is different for the Joker, because he was put into this world with a flaw: He sees too clearly and too much.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“It is different for us mortals. We are the ones who become old and grey. We are the ones who become worn at the seams and disappear. But not our dreams. They can live on in other people even after we have gone.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“a sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“If our brains were as simple as we could understand them, than we would be so stupid that we couldn't understand them again.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Every single morning I wake with a bang,' he said. 'It's as though the fact that I am alive is injected into me; I am a character in a fairytale, bursting with life.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“What do you learn in school, Hans Thomas?” Dad asked. “To sit still,” I replied. “It’s so difficult that we spend many years learning to do it.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery: A Novel About Family & Destiny

“اگر مغز ما آن قدر ساده بود که می‌توانستیم آن را درک کنیم، آن قدر احمق می‌بودیم که به هیچ وجه نمی‌توانستیم آن را درک کنیم.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“• هر کسی آزاد است درباره‌ی هرچیزی که دوست دارد خیال بافی کند، اما وظیفه دارد موجودات خیالی خود را ازین واقعیت آگاه کند که آن‌ها خیالی بیش نیستند. در غیر این صورت آن‌ها را دست انداخته، و آن‌ها حق دارند او را بکشند.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“But Dad said we had to try, because neither he or I could bear the thought of living the rest of our lives without her.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“I don't belong anywhere.
I am neither a heart, a diamond, a club, nor a spade. I am neither a King, a Jack, an Eight, nor an Ace.
As I am here - I am merely the Joker, and who that is I have had to find out for myself.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“• خودت را یک نیشگون بگیر تا مطمئن شوی که حقیقت داری.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“كيف نستطيع أن نعيش علي هذه الأرض ونحن نغمض عيوننا أو أن نجد الحياة أمراً بديهياً؟”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“Nevertheless, most of us think the world is “normal” and are constantly hunting for something abnormal—like angels or Martians. But that is just because we don’t realize the world is a mystery. As for myself, I felt completely different. I saw the world as an amazing dream. I was hunting for some kind of explanation of how everything fit together.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery: A Novel About Family & Destiny

“The memories float further and further away from that which once created them.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“If our brain was simple enough for us to understand it, we would be so stupid we wouldn't be able to understand it after all.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“• فکر می‌کنم درباره‌ی ساختمان فضای خارج از جو زمین بیشتر اطلاع دارم، تا علت رفتن این زن، بدون آنکه دلیلی برای این کارش بیاورد.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

“تو در واقع با خودت و فرصت به دنیا آمدنت در هزار سال بعد می‌جنگیده‌ای.”
― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery