Knut Hamsun quotes

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, renowned for his pioneering psychological literature. His works explore the complexities of the human mind and rural life in Norway. He remains a controversial figure due to his literary legacy and political views. Here are 32 of his quotes:

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

I have gone to the forest.

Knut Hamsun

Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.

Knut Hamsun

I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.

Knut Hamsun

Nothing helped; I was fading helplessly away with open eyes, staring straight at the ceiling. Finally I stuck my forefinger in my mouth and took to sucking on it. Something began stirring in my brain, some thought in there scrambling to get out, a stark-staring mad idea: what if I gave a bite? And without a moment's hesitation I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth together. I jumped up. I was finally awake.

Knut Hamsun

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

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

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

Knut Hamsun

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

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

Knut Hamsun

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

Knut Hamsun

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.

Knut Hamsun

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

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

It was in those days when I wandered about hungry in Kristiania, that strange city which no one leaves before it has set its mark upon him. . . .

Knut Hamsun

... 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.

Knut Hamsun

I am not worthy to speak loudly of Adolf Hitler, nor do his life and deeds call for sentimental arousal. He was a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations. He was a reformer of the highest order, and his historical fate was that he lived in a time of unequalled cruelty, which felled him in the end. Thus the ordinary Western European may look upon Adolf Hitler. And we, his close followers, bow our heads at his death.

Knut Hamsun

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

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

Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.

Knut Hamsun

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

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