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
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?
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.
great
For I mean to roam and think and make great irons red-hot.
easy feet head longer walking
I no longer have my feet planted on the ground, I am walking on air, my head is spinning. It is not easy to be myself right now.
secret knows direct
One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word.
mad details able
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.
memories men crowds
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.
love-is murder violent
Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.
men long path
The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest - who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came.
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.
art book intellectual
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.
coffee thinking doe
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.
legs jerk smooth
Small jerks began to appear in my legs, my walk became unsteady precisely because I wanted it to be smooth.
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.