52 Quotes by Karen Blixen

Là est la différence entre toi et moi. Le monde où tu vis est éclairé par tous les côtés par ta présence en son centre; mais moi il faut que je frotte chaque fois une allumette pour que l'humanité voie ma figure.

There is hardly any other sphere in which prejudice and superstition of the most horrific kind have been retained so long as in that of women, and just as it must have been an inexpressable relief for humanity when it shook off the burden of religious prejudice and superstition, I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open before them.

The Kikuyu, when left to themselves, do not bury their dead, but leave them above ground for the hyenas and vultures to deal with. The custom had always appealed to me, I thought that it would be pleasant thing to be laid out to the sun and the stars, and to be so promptly, neatly, and openly picked and cleansed; to be made one with Nature and become a common component of a landscape.

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.

The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the salt sea.

I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

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

If I know a song of Africa, – I thought, – of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me? I.

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.