The one who says he doesn't understand anything about art, doesn't know himself.

— Jostein Gaarder

The rearing of children is considered too important to be left to the individual and should be the responsibility of the state.

— Jostein Gaarder

The story goes that one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall that sold all kinds of wares. Finally, he said, “What a lot of things I don’t need!

— Jostein Gaarder

The truth is that I feel like a ghost already, and I have to catch my breath each time I think about it. I begin to understand why ghosts go in for so much sighing and hooting. It's not to scare their descendants. It's just that they find it so hard to breathe in a time other than their own. We don't only have a place in existence. We also have an allotted span. That's the way things are, and all I can do is extrapolate from what's around me now.

— Jostein Gaarder

The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.

— Jostein Gaarder

Thus, the 'fortune-teller' is trying to foresee something that is really quite unforeseeable. This is characteristic of all forms of foreseeing. And precisely because what they 'see' is so vague, it is hard to repudiate fortune-tellers' claims.

— Jostein Gaarder

Was Jesus a Christian?

— Jostein Gaarder

We are the universe.

— Jostein Gaarder

We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.

— Jostein Gaarder

We cry when something is sad. Then we often shed a tear when something's beautiful as well. When something's funny or ugly, we laugh. Perhaps we are sad when something is beautiful because we know that it won't last forever. Then, we start laughing when something is ugly because we understand that it's only a joke.

— Jostein Gaarder