179 Quotes by Isak Dinesen

You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.

A herd of elephant... pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world

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

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

We must leave our mark on life while we have it in our power.

All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.

A great artist is never poor.

I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.

There is a particular hapiness in giving a man whom you like very much, good food that you have cooked yourself.