Quotes from Knut Hamsun

Selv de små rosenrøde finner i hendes ansigt satte ham i henrykkelse.

It's very simple: what are we gaining—excuse me if I'm repeating myself—what are we gaining by a pragmatism that robs our life of poetry, dreams, mysticism—are these all lies? What is truth? Can you tell me that? We can only struggle along by using symbols, and we change them as we alter our views. By the way, let's not neglect our drinks.

This began to get interesting. The situation ran away with me, and one lie after another engendered in my head. I sat down again, forgot the newspaper, and the remarkable documents, grew lively, and cut short the old fellow's talk. The little goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and stop his mouth from sheer amazement. Had he heard of the electric psalm-book that Happolati had invented?

When it got dark I jogged along to the Town Hall--God knows how I got there--and sat on the edge of the balustrade. I tore a pocket out of my coat and took to chewing it; not with any defined object, but with dour mien and unseeing eyes, staring straight into space.

Was I lazy? Had I not applied for situations, attended lectures, written articles, and worked day and night like a man possessed? Had I not lived like a miser, eaten bread and milk when I had plenty, bread alone when I had little, and starved when I had nothing? Did I live in an hotel? Had I a suite of rooms on the first floor?

Heaven knows that there are plenty of opportunities in later life, too, for being carried away. What of it? We remain what we are and, no doubt, it is all very good for us!

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

For I mean to roam and think and make great irons red-hot.

Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.

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

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.

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

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

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

It is as well perhaps that this is not the first time I have been swept off my feet. In the days of my blessed youth there were such occasions; in what young person's life do they not occur?

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.

In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the passing, we have arrived.

I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and, more especially, from her lyrics of the last generation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.