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
spiritual real eye
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.
goodbye rip thinking
...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.
legs jerk smooth
Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.
work-out sometimes sideways
But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.
two long bird
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.
couple world welcome
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.
names debt goes-on
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
smell light use
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.
flower love-is blood
And love became the world's origin and the world's ruler, yet littered its path is with flowers and blood, flowers and blood.
fate men becoming
No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.
giving way fool
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)
great
For I mean to roam and think and make great irons red-hot.
followed indulge wisdom
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.
blessed days life perhaps swept time
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?