Isak Dinesen Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• I had seen a herd of Elephant travelling through dense native forest ... pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.

  Isak Dinesen

  Elephants, End Of The World, Forests

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  6 Copy quote

• The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control.

  Isak Dinesen

  Dream, Lying, Sides

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  6 Copy quote

• The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me , and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.

  Isak Dinesen

  Tired, Night, Long Grass

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

  17 Copy quote

• The divine art is the story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Art, Writing, Stories

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.28, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted.

  Isak Dinesen

  Truth, Thinking, People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.152, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?

  Isak Dinesen

  Wine, Men, Thinking

  Seven Gothic Tales "The Dreamers" (1934)

  8 Copy quote

• our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.

  Isak Dinesen

  Blessed, Home, Longing

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.10, Vintage

  23 Copy quote

• I arrived at the conviction that we should, more easily and more thoroughly than we now do or ever have done, understand the nature and the laws of the Cosmos if we would from the beginning recognize its originator and upholder as being of the female sex.

  Isak Dinesen

  God, Sex, Law

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.67, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• A giraffe is so much a lady that one refrains from thinking of her legs, but remembers her as floating over the plains in long garb, draperies of morning mist her mirage.

  Isak Dinesen

  Morning, Thinking, Long

  39 Copy quote

• The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Song, Kings

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  18 Copy quote

• Man reaches the highest point of lovableness at 12 to 17 - to get it back, in a second flowering, at the age of 70 to 90

  Isak Dinesen

  Teenage, Men, Flowering

  6 Copy quote

• Truth is for tailors and shoemakers. I, on the contrary, have always held that the Lord has a penchant for masquerades.

  Isak Dinesen

  Tailors, Truth Is, Lord

  "A brief survey of the short story: Isak Dinesen" by Chris Power, www.theguardian.com. May 20, 2014.

  12 Copy quote

• There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive. One only feels really free when one can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, to get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night.

  Isak Dinesen

  Gratitude, Fall, Night

  14 Copy quote

• Your own self, your personality and existence are reflected within the mind of each of the people whom you meet, ... into a likeness, a caricature of yourself, which still lives on and appears to be, in some way, the truth about you. Even a flattering picture is... a lie.

  Isak Dinesen

  Lying, Self, People

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.166, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• I have a feeling that wherever I may be in the future, I will be wondering whether there is rain at Ngong.

  Isak Dinesen

  Rain, Feelings, May

  5 Copy quote

• I have before seen other countries, in the same manner, give themselves to you when you are about to leave them.

  Isak Dinesen

  Country, Giving, Other Countries

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  13 Copy quote

• One does not travel by plane. One is merely sent, like a parcel.

  Isak Dinesen

  Doe, Planes, Parcel

  4 Copy quote

• I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open to them.

  Isak Dinesen

  Real, Thinking, People

  11 Copy quote

• Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best.

  Isak Dinesen

  Heart, Artist, Long

  4 Copy quote

• I belong to an ancient, idle, wild and useless tribe, perhaps I am even one of the last members of it, who for many thousands of years, in all countries and parts of the world, has, now and again, stayed for a time among the hard-working honest people in real life, and sometimes has thus been fortunate enough to create another sort of reality for them, which in some way or another, has satisfied them. I am a storyteller.

  Isak Dinesen

  Country, Real, Hard Work

  Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen (1987). “On Modern Marriage and Other Observations”

  8 Copy quote

• When we are young the idea of death or failure is intolerable to us; even the possibility of ridicule we cannot bear. But we have also an unconquerable faith in our own stars, and in the impossibility of anything venturing to go against us. As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things, but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other. In this way a balance is obtained.

  Isak Dinesen

  Stars, Believe, Ideas

  5 Copy quote

• Some people have an unconquerable love of riddles. They may have the chance of listening to plain sense, or to such wisdom that explains life; but no, they must go and work their brains over a riddle, just because they do not understand what it means.

  Isak Dinesen

  Mean, People, Brain

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.19, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Writing, Sorrow, Telling Stories

  6 Copy quote

• The flamingoes are the most delicately colored of all the African birds, pink and red like a flying twig of an oleander bush. They have incredibly long legs and bizarre and recherché curves of their necks and bodies, as if from some exquisite traditional prudery they were making all attitudes and movements in life as difficult as possible.

  Isak Dinesen

  Attitude, Curves, Long

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

  10 Copy quote

• There is something about Safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows

  Isak Dinesen

  Sorrow, Safari, Forget

  26 Copy quote

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