But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways. Knut Hamsun More Quotes by Knut Hamsun More Quotes From Knut Hamsun One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word. Knut Hamsun direct secret knows I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace. Knut Hamsun umbrella rhyme life-and-death I suffered no pain, my hunger had taken the edge off; instead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me and happy to be unseen by all. I put my legs up on the bench and leaned back, the best way to feel the true well-being of seclusion. There wasn't a cloud in my mind, nor did I feel any discomfort, and I hadn't a single unfulfilled desire or craving as far as my thought could reach. I lay with open eyes in a state of utter absence from myself and felt deliciously out of it. Knut Hamsun pain eye taken 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. Knut Hamsun important matter today There was a rock in front of my hut, a tall, gray rock. By its looks it seemed to be well-disposed toward me. Knut Hamsun gray rocks looks 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. Knut Hamsun intellectual book art Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth. Knut Hamsun smooth legs jerk Great men are excellent topics of conversation, but the superior man, the superior men, the masters, the universal spirits on horseback, have to stop and search their memories merely to know who these so-called great men might be. And so the great man is left with the crowd, the worthless majority...for his admirers. Knut Hamsun majority men memories I have gone to the forest. Knut Hamsun gone forests When good befalls a man he calls it Providence, when evil fate. Knut Hamsun fate evil men But now it was spring again, and spring was almost unbearable for sensitive hearts. It drove creation to its utmost limits, it wafted its spice-laden breath even into the nostrils of the innocent. Knut Hamsun spices heart spring 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. Knut Hamsun dust sorry fall 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. Knut Hamsun bird two long The whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow. Knut Hamsun pleading bones blood 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! Knut Hamsun sweat two years 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! Knut Hamsun doubt opportunity heaven 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. Knut Hamsun light flower offering I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things. Knut Hamsun rocks light The heavy red roses smoldering in the foggy morning, blood-colored and uninhibited, made me greedy, and tempted me powerfully to steal one--I asked the prices merely so I could come as near them as possible. Knut Hamsun rose morning blood 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. Knut Hamsun details mad able
