As quoted in Reader's Digest (April 1964)
Variant: I know a cure for everything. Salt water … in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea.
Variant: The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.

“Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

As quoted in obituaries (7 September 1962)
Variant: God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
Source: Out of Africa

“Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence.”

Karen Blixen book Last Tales

"The Blank Page"
Last Tales (1957)
Context: Why, you are to become a story teller, and I shall give you the reasons! Hear then: Where the storyteller is loyal, eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak. Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness. But we, the faithful, when we have spoken our last word, will hear the voice of silence. Whether a small snotty lass understands it or not.

“Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are.”

Karen Blixen book Seven Gothic Tales

"The Dreamers"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Context: The consolations of the vulgar are bitter in the royal ear. Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are. I have been told that lions, trapped and shut up in cages, grieve from shame more than from hunger.

“Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.”

Karen Blixen book Anecdotes of Destiny

"Babette's Feast"
Anecdotes of Destiny (1953)
Context: Of what happened later in the evening nothing definite can here be stated. None of the guests later on had any clear remembrance of it. They only knew that the rooms had been filled with a heavenly light, as if a number of small halos had blended into one glorious radiance. Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.

“The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key, the minor key, to existence.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Out of Africa (1937)
Context: The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key, the minor key, to existence. They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy, who will not tolerate it, and to whom the word tragedy means in itself unpleasantness.

“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Source: Out of Africa

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

Karen Blixen

As quoted in Journey Through Womanhood: Meditations from Our Collective Soul (2002) by Tian Dayton

“It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.”

Karen Blixen

“Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best.”

Karen Blixen

Source: Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny

“our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.”