Tomas Transtromer Quotes

Sweden, Poet
April 15, 1931 – March, 26, 2015.

Tomas Gösta Tranströmer was a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems captured the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's work is also characterized by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routine of everyday life, a quality which often gives his poems a religious dimension. He has been described as a Christian poet.

Also known as Psychologist, Translator

In the middle of life, death comes to take your measurements. The visit is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit is being sewn on the sly.

Tomas Transtromer
- Death
- Visit
- Suit
The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall. It is like a prayer to what is empty And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers: 'I am not empty, I am open'.

Tomas Transtromer
- Prayer
- Place
- Sky

A person shows himself for an instant as in a photograph but clearer and in the background something which is bigger than his shadow.

Tomas Transtromer
- Person
- Shadow
- Photograph
We always feel younger than we are. I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones.

Tomas Transtromer
- Mirror
- Face
- Younger
Every abstract picture of the world is as impossible as a blueprint of a storm. Don't be ashamed because you're human: be proud! Inside you, vaults behind vaults open endlessly. You will never be finished, and that's as it should be.

Tomas Transtromer
- World
- Proud
- Human
It's always so early in here, before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. Thank you for this life! Still I miss the alternatives. The sketches, all of them, want to become real.

Tomas Transtromer
- Life
- Choices
- Crossroads
It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat but often the shadow seems more real than the body.

Tomas Transtromer
- Real
- Heart
- Body
A ship's engine far away on the water expands the summer-night horizon. Both joy and sorrow swell in the dew's magnifying glass. Without really knowing, we divine; our life has a sister ship, following quietly another route. While the sun blazes behind the islands.

Tomas Transtromer
- Night
- Knowing
- Divine

I am carried in my shadow like a violin in its black case

Tomas Transtromer
- Shadow
- Case
- VIolin
I am still the place where creation does some work on itself.

Tomas Transtromer
- Work
- Place
- Creation