Both Linda and I live on the brink of chaos, or the feeling of chaos: everything can fall apart at any moment and we have to force ourselves to come to terms with the demands of a life with small children. … However, this constant improvisation increases the significance of the moment, which of course then becomes extremely eventful since nothing about it is automatic, and if our lives feel good, which naturally they do at times, there is a great sense of togetherness and a correspondingly intense happiness. … The corrosive part, of course, is the awareness that being nice to them is not of the slightest help when I am in the thick of it, dragged down into a quagmire of tears and frustration. And, once in the quagmire, each further action only serves to plunge me deeper. And at least as corrosive is the awareness that I am dealing with children. That it is children who are dragging me down. There is something deeply shameful about this.

karl ove knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgaard - A Dea…, loc. 102