Knut Hamsun citations

“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.”

“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.”

“Truth is neither ojectivity nor the balanced view; truth is a selfless subjectivity.”

“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?”

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

“Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.”

“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.”

“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…”

“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.”

“I have gone to the forest”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“It was not my intention to collapse; no, I would die standing.”

“I was on the verge of crying with grief at still being alive.”

“And love became the world's origin and the world's ruler, yet littered its path is with flowers and blood, flowers and blood.”

“In old age… we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.”

“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.”

“All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiania – that strange city no one escapes from until it has left its mark on him.”

“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. . . .”