Knut Hamsun Quotes

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The sad rocking chair in the corner was actually a joke of a chair: if one started laughing at it, one could die laughing. It was too low for a grown man, and besides, it was so tight, one needed a shoehorn to get back out of it. In short, this room was simply not furnished in a way appropriate to intellectual effort, and I did not intend to keep it any longer.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The sad rocking chair in
No matter how much I kept telling myself that I was behaving like an idiot, it was no use.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: No matter how much I
No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: No worse fate can befall
I sat looking at her with rapt attention. My heart was thumping, the blood coursing warmly through my veins. What a wonderful pleasure to be sitting in a human dwelling again, hear a clock ticking, and talk with a lively young girl instead of with myself!
Why don't you say something?"
Ah, how sweet you are!" I said. "I'm sitting here getting fascinated by you, at this moment I'm thoroughly fascinated. I can't help it. You are the strangest person that... Sometimes your eyes are so radiant, I've never seen anything like it, they look like flowers. Eh? No, no, maybe not like flowers but... I'm madly in love with you, and it won't do me a bit of good. What's your name? Really, you must tell me what your name is..."
No, what's your name? Goodness, I almost forgot again! I was thinking all day yesterday that I must ask you. Well, that is, not all day yesterday, I certainly didn't think about you all day yesterday."
Do you know what I've called you? I have called you Ylajali. How do you like it? Such a gliding sound-"
Ylajali?"
Yes."
Is it a foreign language?"
Hmm. No, it's not."
Well, it isn't ugly.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I sat looking at her
That room was Rolandsen's world. Rolandsen was not just irresponsibility and inebriation, he was also great thinker and inventor. There was a smell of acids that permeated the corridor and came to the notice of every visitor. Rolandsen made no secret of the fact that he had all these medicaments there solely to disguise the aroma of all the brandy he consumed. But this was part of an act designed purely to give himself an air of inscrutability.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: That room was Rolandsen's world.
A shaft of sweetness shoots through me from top to toe when the sun rises; I shoulder my gun in silent exaltation.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A shaft of sweetness shoots
Summer is the time for dreaming, and then you have to stop. But some people go on dreaming all their lives, and cannot change.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Summer is the time for
I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I can't even make up
A maiden was imprisoned in a stone tower. She loved a lord. Why? Ask the wind and the stars, ask the god of life; for no one else knows these things. And the lord was her friend and her lover; but time passed, and one fine day he saw someone else and his heart turned away. As a youth he loved the maiden. Often he called her his bliss and his dove, and her embrace was hot and heaving. He said, Give me your heart! And she did so. He said, May I ask you for something, my love? And she answered, in raptures, Yes. She gave him all, and yet he never thanked her. The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask life's mysterious god; for no one else knows these things. She gave him nothing, no, nothing did she give him, and yet he thanked her. She said, Give me your peace and your sanity. And he only grieved that she didn't ask for his life. And the maiden was put in the tower. . . .
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A maiden was imprisoned in
But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: But things worked out. Everything
Today riches and honours have been lavished on me, but one gift has been lacking, the most important one of all, the only one that matters, the gift of youth.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Today riches and honours have
Well, bless my soul, what stupid creatures one has to mix with in this world!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Well, bless my soul, what
He was hungry, and his first thought was to collect a dozen or two gulls' eggs to make a meal. But embryo chicks were forming in all of them. So he rowed out to do some fishing and was more succesful. He lived on fish from day to day and sang and whiled the time away and ruled over the island. When it rained he too shelter beneath a splendid overhangig rock. At night he slept on a patch of grass and the sun never set.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: He was hungry, and his
Foul places began to gather in my inner being, black spores which spread more and more. And up in Heaven God Almighty sat and kept a watchful eye on me, and took heed that my destruction proceeded in accordance with all the rules of art, uniformly and gradually, without a break in the measure.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Foul places began to gather
Out in the fjord I dragged myself up at once, wet with fever and exhaustion, and gazed landwards, and bade farewell for the present to the town – to Christiania, where the windows gleamed so brightly in all the homes.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Out in the fjord I
If I happened to find a diamond one day, I would call it Dagny, because the very sound of your name thrills me. I only wish that I could forever hear your name, hear it spoken by all men and beasts, by every mountain and every star. I wish I were deaf to every sound except your name ringing in my ears day and night for the rest of my life.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: If I happened to find
Were I more conversant with literature and its great names, I could go on quoting them ad infinitum and acknowledge my debt for the merit you have been generous enough to find in my work.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Were I more conversant with
During those days, both the bed and my little rickety table were swimming in notes and scribbled-over manuscripts that I took turns working on, adding new ideas that occurred to me in the course of the day, crossing out material or freshening up the dead passages with a lively word here or there, and pushing on from sentence to sentence with great labor.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: During those days, both the
Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered - delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Rather than admire the mediocre
It's always the same story. Naturally one doesn't get the woman one should have had; but if by some damned freak of reason and justice it ever does happen, then of course she dies immediately after.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: It's always the same story.
Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Love is every bit as
I tell you, you Heaven's Holy Baal, you don't exist; but that, if you did, I would curse you so that your Heaven would quiver with the fire of hell! I tell you, I have offered you my service, and you repulsed me; and I turn my back on you for all eternity, because you did not know your time of visitation! I tell you that I am about to die, and yet I mock you! You Heaven God and Apis! with death staring me in the face - I tell you, I would rather be a bondsman in hell than a freedman in your mansions! I tell you, I am filled with a blissful contempt for your divine paltriness; and I choose the abyss of destruction for a perpetual resort, where the devils Judas and Pharaoh are cast down!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I tell you, you Heaven's
What was the point of spelling out the details? And anyway, wasn't a poor soul allowed to have a little genuine lovesickness to cope with on top of everything else? Without further ado, Rolandsen went up to his office, straight to the instrument, and asked one of the operators at the Rosengaard telegraph station to send him half a cask of cognac at the first opportunity. There was no sense in carrying on like this forever.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: What was the point of
Earth and sea merged, the sea tossed itself in the air in a fantastic dance, into the shapes of men and horses and tattered banners. I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Earth and sea merged, the
But there was she, and there were you. Her breath was on you, you tasted flesh. She came from some darkness - she was certainly not of this earth. Remember the eyes?
Knut Hamsun Quotes: But there was she, and
A man comes walking north. He carries a sack, the first sack, containing provisions for the road and some implements. The man is strong and rough-hewn, with a red lion beard and little scars on face and hands, sites of old wounds
were they gotten at work or in a fight? Maybe he has been in jail and wants to go into hiding, or perhaps he is a philosopher looking for peace; in any case, here he comes, a human being in the midst of this immense solitude. He walks and walks, in a silence broken by neither bird nor beast.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A man comes walking north.
Great men are excellent topics of conversation, but the superior man, the superior men, the masters, the universal spirits on horseback, have to stop and search their memories merely to know who these so-called great men might be. And so the great man is left with the crowd, the worthless majority ... for his admirers.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Great men are excellent topics
Truth is neither ojectivity nor the balanced view; truth is a selfless subjectivity.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Truth is neither ojectivity nor
So we Europeans are shocked by the blind, uncomprehending hard-heartedness that certain American government policies imply. I am thinking of the terrible tariff walls erected against Europe and the ironfisted efforts to secure payment of Europe's war debt. As a layman, as a man in the street, I reason like this: Though America, for the moment, gains the most from its financial policy, what about the future, all the years to come, all the generations to be born? No more than any other country on the planet can America stand alone. America is not the world. America is a part of the world and must live its life together with all the other parts.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: So we Europeans are shocked
I lie and repeat these words over to myself, and find that they are capital. Little by little others come and fit themselves to the preceding ones. I grow keenly wakeful. I get up and snatch paper and pencil from the table behind my bed. It was as if a vein had burst in me ; one word follows another, and they fit themselves together harmoniously with telling effect. Scenes piles on scene, actions and speeches bubble up in my brain, and a wonderful sense of pleasure empowers me. I write as one possessed, and fill page after page without a moment's pause
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I lie and repeat these
The writer must be able to revel and roll in the abundance of words; he must know not only the direct but also the secret power of a word. There are overtones and undertones to a word, and lateral echoes, too.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The writer must be able
Growth of the soil was something different, a thing to be procured at any cost; the only source, the origin of all. A dull and desolate existence? Nay, least of all. A man had everything; his powers above, his dreams, his loves, his wealth of superstition.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Growth of the soil was
It is the reign of Autumn, the height of the Carnival of Decay, the roses have got inflammation in their blushes, an uncanny hectic tinge, through their soft damask. I felt myself like a creeping thing on the verge of destruction, gripped by ruin in the midst of a whole world ready for lethargic sleep.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: It is the reign of
"But has anything happened to you? Your face is so strangely distorted."
"No, I'm smiling," he said. "This is going to be my way of smiling. I want this grimace to be my hallmark.
Knut Hamsun Quotes:
This is a life you do not understand. Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. If you ask me intellectual questions and try to trip me up, then I will reply, for example, that God is the origin of all things and that truly men are mere specks and atoms in the universe. You are no wiser than I. But if you should go so far as to ask me what is eternity, then I know quite as much in this matter, too, and reply thus: Eternity is merely unborn time, nothing but unborn time.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: This is a life you
I believe I can read a little in the souls of those around me; maybe it is not so. Oh, when I have a good day I feel as if I can peer deep into other people's souls, although I don't have a particularly good head on my shoulders. We sit in a room, some men and women and I, and I seem to see what is going on in the hearts of these people and what they think of me. I put something into every flashing glance of their eyes; occasionally the blood rushes to their cheeks so they turn red, at other times they pretend to be looking another way while still watching me out of the corner of their eyes. There I sit observing all this, and nobody suspects that I see through every soul. For several years I have thought I could read the souls of everybody. Maybe it is not so. . . .
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I believe I can read
I love three things," I then say. "I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth."
"And which do you love best?"
"The dream.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I love three things,
I opened my eyes; how could I keep them shut when I could not sleep? The same darkness brooded over me; the same unfathomable black eternity which my thoughts strove against and could not understand. I made the most despairing efforts to find a word black enough to characterize this darkness; a word so horribly black that it would darken my lips if I named it. Lord! how dark it was! and I am carried back in thought to the sea and the dark monsters that lay in wait for me. They would draw me to them, and clutch me tightly and bear me away by land and sea, through dark realms that no soul has seen. I feel myself on board, drawn through waters, hovering in clouds, sinking
sinking.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I opened my eyes; how
Yes," he answered, "it's a strain being witty at my age. I'm giving it up.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Yes,
What does the world know? Nothing! You simply get used to something, you accept it and acknowledge it, because your teacher has acknowledged it before you; everything is just a supposition - indeed, even time, space, motion, matter are suppositions. The world knows nothing, it merely accepts things ...
Knut Hamsun Quotes: What does the world know?
Then we were at the fountain - we stop and look up at the many illuminated windows of number 2.
"This is as far as you can walk me," she says. "Thanks for taking me home."
I bowed, not daring to say a word. I doffed my hat and stood bareheaded. I wondered if she would give me her hand.
"Why don't you ask me to walk back with you part of the way?" She says playfully. But she looks down at the tip of her shoe.
"Gee," I answer, "if only you would!"
"Sure, but only a little way."
And we turned around.
I was utterly bewildered, I didn't know which way was up anymore; this person turned all my thinking topsy-turvy. I was enchanted, wonderfully glad; I felt as though I were dying from happiness. She had expressly wanted to go back with me, it wasn't my idea, it was her own wish. I gaze and gaze at her, growing more and more cocky, and she encourages me, drawing me toward her by every word she speaks. I forget for a moment my poverty, my humble self, my whole miserable existence, I feel the blood coursing warmly through my body as in the old days, before I broke down.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Then we were at the
One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: One must know and recognize
I was conscious all the time that I was following mad whims without being able to do anything about it ... . Despite my alienation from myself at that moment, and even though I was nothing but a battleground for invisible forces, I was aware of every detail of what was going on around me.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I was conscious all the
I began running so as to punish myself, left street after street behind me, pushed myself on with inward jeers, and screeched silently and furiously at myself whenever I felt like stopping. With the help of these exertions I ended up far along Pile Street. When I finally did stop, almost weeping with anger that I couldn't run any farther, my whole body trembled, and I threw myself down on a house stoop. "Not so fast!" I said. And to torture myself right, I stood up again and forced myself to stand there, laughing at myself and gloating over my own fatigue. Finally, after a few minutes I nodded and so gave myself permission to sit down; however, I chose the most uncomfortable spot on the stoop.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I began running so as
What if one were up there, drifting about among suns and feeling the tails of comets fan one's forehead! How small the earth was and how puny the people; a Norway of two million provincial souls and a mortgage bank to help feed them! What was life worth at such a rate? You elbowed yourself ahead in the sweat of your face for a few mortal years, only to perish all the same, all the same!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: What if one were up
How gaily and lightly these people I met carried their radiant heads, and swung themselves through life as through a ball-room! There was no sorrow in a single look I met, no burden on any shoulder, perhaps not even a clouded thought, not a little hidden pain in any of the happy souls. And I, walking in the very midst of these people, young and newly-fledged as I was, had already forgotten the very look of happiness. I hugged these thoughts to myself as I went on, and found that a great injustice had been done me. Why had the last months pressed so strangely hard on me? I failed to recognize my own happy temperament, and I met with the most singular annoyances from all quarters. I could not sit down on a bench by myself or set my foot any place without being assailed by insignificant accidents, miserable details, that forced their way into my imagination and scattered my powers to all the four winds. A dog that dashed by me, a yellow rose in a man's buttonhole, had the power to set my thoughts vibrating and occupy me for a length of time.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: How gaily and lightly these
I had no pain--my hunger had taken the edge off it. In its stead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me, and glad not to be noticed by any one. I put my feet up on the seat and leant back. Thus I could best appreciate the well-being of perfect isolation. There was not a cloud on my mind, not a feeling of discomfort, and so far as my thought reached, I had not a whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I had no pain--my hunger
In my solitude, many miles from men and houses, I am in a childishly happy and carefree state of mind, which you are incapable of understanding unless someone explains it to you.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: In my solitude, many miles
Fall has arrived and has already begun to put everything into a deep sleep; flies and other insects have suffered their first setback, and up in the trees and down on the ground you can hear the sounds of struggling life, puttering , ceaselessly rustling, laboring not to perish.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Fall has arrived and has
A little way down the road I turned, and saw how his wife and daughter took him up. And I thought to myself: no, 'tis not all roses when one goes a-wandering. At the next place I came to I learned that he had been with the army, as quartermaster-sergeant; then he went mad over a lawsuit he lost, and was shut up in an asylum for some time. Now in the spring his trouble broke out again; perhaps it was my coming that had given the final touch. But the lightning insight in his eyes at the moment when the madness came upon him! I think of him now and again; he was a lesson to me. 'Tis none so easy to judge of men, who are wise or mad. And God preserve us all from being known for what we are!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A little way down the
Keep it, keep it!" I answered. "You are very welcome to it! It is only a couple of small things, doesn't amount to anything - about everything I own in the world.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Keep it, keep it!
The dark monsters out there would suck me up when night came on, and they would carry me far across the sea and through strange lands where no humans lived.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The dark monsters out there
But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. And the sound of her voice in the forest was just like a little tremulous song. And the leaves turn even more yellow, fall is approaching; more stars have appeared in the sky, and from now on the moon looks like a shadow of silver dipped in gold.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: But it doesn't matter. Nothing
A swarm of tiny noxious animals had bored a way into my inner man and hollowed me out.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A swarm of tiny noxious
When I got outside, I came to a standstill and said loudly in the open street, as I clenched my hands: "I will tell you one thing, my good Lord God, you are a bungler!" and I nod furiously, with set teeth, up to the clouds; "I will be hanged if you are not a bungler.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: When I got outside, I
But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe ...
Knut Hamsun Quotes: But what really matters is
God be praised, I had raised myself in my own estimation again!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: God be praised, I had
There are some people who cannot help giving. Why? Because they experience a real psychological pleasure in doing so. They don't do it with an eye to their own advantage, they do it on the quiet; they detest doing it openly because that would take away some of the satisfaction. They do it in secret, with quick trembling hands, their breasts rocked by a spiritual well being which they do not themselves understand.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: There are some people who
Wasn't Pan sitting in a tree watching to see how I would comport myself? Wasn't his belly open, and wasn't he hunched over so that he seemed to be drinking from his own belly? But all this he did only so he could cock his eye and watch me, and the whole tree shook from his silent laughter when he saw that my thoughts were running away with me.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Wasn't Pan sitting in a
And love became the world's beginning and the world's ruler; but all its ways are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: And love became the world's
Asked what love is, some reply: It is only a wind whispering among the roses and dying away. But often it is an inviolable seal that endures for life, endures till death. God has fashioned it of many kinds and seen it endure or perish.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Asked what love is, some
The ships whose masts I saw outlined against the sky looked, with their black hulls, like silent monsters that were raising their hackles and lying in wait for me.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The ships whose masts I
God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a trace remaining of human affections ... Only someone who has become slow and watertight with old age, satiated and hardened with pleasure, will go to youth and say, Renounce! ... And yet the youth renounces nothing, but sins royally for forty years. Such is the course of nature!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: God help me, how Tolstoy
And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me ... everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: And the great spirit of
The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The long, long road over
The whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The whisper of the blood
Then I began, as though I had never seen my shoes before, to study their expression, their mimelike movements when I moved my toes, their shape, and the worn-out leather they had; and I discovered that their wrinkles and their white seams gave them an expression, provided them with a face. Something of my own being had gone over into these shoes, they struck me as being a ghost of my "I," a breathing part of myself. . . .
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Then I began, as though
It was weather for dreams; for little fluttering quests of the heart.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: It was weather for dreams;
I imagined I had discovered a new word. I rise up in bed and say, "It is not in the language; I have discovered it. 'Kuboa.' It has letters as a word has. By the benign God, Man you have discovered a word! ... 'Kuboa' ... a word of profound import.
[ ... ]
Some minutes pass over, and I wax nervous; this new word torments me unceasingly, returns again and again, takes up my thoughts, and makes me serious. I had fully formed an opinion as to what it should not signify, but had come to no conclusion as to what it should signify.
[ ... ]
Then it seems to me that some one is interposing, interrupting my confab. I answer angrily, "Beg pardon! You match in idiocy is not to be found; no, sir! Knitting cotton? Ah! go to hell!" Well, really I had to laugh. Might I ask why should I be forced to let it signify knitting cotton, when I had a special dislike to its signifying knitting cotton?
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I imagined I had discovered
When good befalls a man he calls it Providence, when evil fate.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: When good befalls a man
You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: You are welcome to your
Gladness is intoxicating. I fire my gun and an unforgettable echo answers from crag to crag, floats out over the sea and rings in some sleepless helmsman's ears. What am I glad about? A thought that comes to me, a memory, a sound in the forest, a human being. I think of her - I close my eyes and stand still on the road and think of her, counting the minutes.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Gladness is intoxicating. I fire
The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned ...
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The intelligent poor individual was
I have gone to the forest
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I have gone to the
However, I must not indulge in homespun wisdom here before so distinguished an assembly, especially as I am to be followed by a representative of science.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: However, I must not indulge
But now it was spring again, and spring was almost unbearable for sensitive hearts. It drove creation to its utmost limits, it wafted its spice-laden breath even into the nostrils of the innocent.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: But now it was spring
I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I have had much to
You are right; I am not good at moving in society. Be merciful. You do not understand me; I live in the woods by choice
that is my happiness. Here, where I am all alone, it can hurt no one that I am as I am; but when I go among others, I have to use all my will power to be as I should.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: You are right; I am
I was on the verge of crying with grief at still being alive.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I was on the verge
I will exile my thoughts if they think of you again, and I will rip my lips out if they say your name once more. Now if you do exist, I will tell you my final word in life or in death, I tell you goodbye.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I will exile my thoughts
There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: There is nothing like being
A word can be transformed into a coulour, light, a smell; it is the writer's task to use it in such a way that it serves, never fails, can never be ignored.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A word can be transformed
Never stand around saying 'Poor thing' and being pitiful
when things are being killed. It makes them tough and harder to kill.
Remember that!
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Never stand around saying 'Poor
A few days back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at all. That amused me too, those devilish green feathers.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: A few days back someone
Oh, a woman can't tell one man from another; not always - not often.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Oh, a woman can't tell
No, what I should really like to do right now, in the full blaze of lights, before this illustrious assembly, is to shower every one of you with gifts, with flowers, with offerings of poetry - to be young once more, to ride on the crest of the wave.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: No, what I should really
In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: In old age we are
Language must resound with all the harmonies of music. The writer must always, at all times, find the tremulous word which captures the thing and is able to draw a sob from my soul by its very rightness.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Language must resound with all
- Is that for me? said he.

- Yes, it's for you.

He took it carefully in his hands, and stroked it.

- Do you think it's nice?

- Nice - why I could go round the world in such.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: - Is that for me?
I would be beholden to no man, not even for a blanket.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: I would be beholden to
My heart understands all, and it no longer beats, it peals.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: My heart understands all, and
The thought of God began to occupy me. It seemed to me in the highest degree indefensible of Him to interfere every time I sought for a place, and to upset the whole thing, while all the time I was but imploring enough for a daily meal.
Knut Hamsun Quotes: The thought of God began
Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet ... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)
Knut Hamsun Quotes: Do you know what constitutes
fraudulent blue ozone
Knut Hamsun Quotes: fraudulent blue ozone
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