Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsunwas a Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to the subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 20 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, and some essays...
NationalityNorwegian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth4 August 1859
CountryNorway
easy feet head longer walking
I no longer have my feet planted on the ground, I am walking on air, my head is spinning. It is not easy to be myself right now.
echoes secret able
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.
giving effort littles
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?
dream love-you earth
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.
soul able language
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.
life-and-death umbrella rhyme
I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.
views subjectivity selfless
Truth is neither ojectivity nor the balanced view; truth is a selfless subjectivity.
horse men rocks
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.
flower light offering
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.
rocks looks gray
There was a rock in front of my hut, a tall, gray rock. By its looks it seemed to be well-disposed toward me...
sorry fall dust
The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and like a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask the mysterious God of life; for no one knows such things. She gave him nothing, no nothing did she give him and yet he thanked her. She said: Give me your peace and your reason! And he was only sorry she did not ask for his life.
mad details able
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.
years sweat two
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!
fate men evil
When good befalls a man he calls it Providence, when evil fate.