Knut Hamsun Quotes

Quotes about:

• Do not forget, some give little, and it is much for them, others give all, and it costs them no effort; who then has given most?

  Knut Hamsun

  Giving, Effort, Cost

  60 Copy quote

• 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

  Past, Age, Letters

  "Wanderers". Book by Knut Hamsun, 1909.

  58 Copy quote

• Truth is neither ojectivity nor the balanced view; truth is a selfless subjectivity.

  Knut Hamsun

  Views, Selfless, Subjectivity

  40 Copy quote

• 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

  Echoes, Secret, Able

  48 Copy quote

• 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

  Dream, Love You, Three

  31 Copy quote

• But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe.

  Knut Hamsun

  Believe, Matter, Conviction

  Knut Hamsun (2011). “Mysteries”, p.141, Souvenir Press

  31 Copy quote

• Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.

  Knut Hamsun

  Love Is, Murder, Violent

  Knut Hamsun, Gunnvor Stallybrass (2001). “A wanderer plays on muted strings”, Green Integer Books

  16 Copy quote

• But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.

  Knut Hamsun

  Work Out, Sometimes, Sideways

  Knut Hamsun (2011). “The Ring is Closed”, p.71, Souvenir Press

  13 Copy quote

• No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.

  Knut Hamsun

  Fate, Men, Becoming

  Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse (1971). “Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse”

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, House, Understanding

  32 Copy quote

• 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

  Spiritual, Real, Eye

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Coffee, Thinking, Doe

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Light, Smell, Tasks

  18 Copy quote

• An increasing number of people who lead mental lives of great intensity, people who are sensitive by nature, notice the steadily more frequent appearance in them of mental states of great strangeness ... a wordless and irrational feeling of ecstasy; or a breath of psychic pain; a sense of being spoken to from afar, from the sky or the sea; an agonizingly developed sense of hearing which can cause one to wince at the murmuring of unseen atoms; an irrational staring into the heart of some closed kingdom suddenly and briefly revealed.

  Knut Hamsun

  Pain, Heart, Sea

  32 Copy quote

• But now the world breaks in on us, the world is shocked, the world looks upon our idyll as madness. The world maintains that no rational man or woman would have chosen this way of life - therefore, it is madness. Alone I confront them and tell them that nothing could be saner or truer! What do people really know about life? We fall in line, follow the pattern established by our mentors. Everything is based on assumptions; even time, space, motion, matter are nothing but supposition. The world has no new knowledge to impart; it merely accepts what is there.

  Knut Hamsun

  Fall, Men, Space

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Nature, Horse, Men

  24 Copy quote

• One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word.

  Knut Hamsun

  Secret, Knows, Direct

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Soul, Able, Language

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  Song, Air, Voice

  Knut Hamsun (2015). “Hunger”, p.40, Xist Publishing

  18 Copy quote

• When good befalls a man he calls it Providence, when evil fate.

  Knut Hamsun

  Fate, Men, Evil

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Intelligent, People, Soul

  Knut Hamsun (1999). “Hunger”, p.97, Canongate Books

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Giving, Ordinary, Way

  Knut Hamsun (2011). “Mysteries”, p.33, Souvenir Press

  9 Copy quote

• And love was creation's source,creation's ruler; but all love's ways are strewn with blossoms and blood, blossoms and blood.

  Knut Hamsun

  Blood, And Love, Way

  Knut Hamsun (1969). “Victoria; a love story”

  11 Copy quote

• And love became the world's origin and the world's ruler, yet littered its path is with flowers and blood, flowers and blood.

  Knut Hamsun

  Flower, Love Is, Blood

  "Victoria". Book by Knut Hamsun, 1898.

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Couple, World, Welcome

  Knut Hamsun (2008). “Hunger: A Novel”, p.56, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

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