240 Quotes by Knut Hamsun

I see stars before my eyes, and my thoughts are swept up into a hurricane of light.

Love was God’s first word, the first thought that sailed across his mind. He said, Let there be light, and there was love.

Were I more conversant with literature and its great names, I could go on quoting them ad infinitum and acknowledge my debt for the merit you have been generous enough to find in my work.

No, I don’t admire the genius. But I admire and love the result of the genius’s activity in the world, of which the great man is only the poor necessary tool, only, so to speak, the paltry awl to bore with.

But there was she, and there were you. Her breath was on you, you tasted flesh. She came from some darkness – she was certainly not of this earth. Remember the eyes?

What have you done to your eyes? They’re all red. Have you been crying?’ ‘No,’ he answers, laughing, ’but I’ve been staring into my fairy tales, where the sun is very strong.

Fall has arrived and has already begun to put everything into a deep sleep; flies and other insects have suffered their first setback, and up in the trees and down on the ground you can hear the sounds of struggling life, puttering, ceaselessly rustling, laboring not to perish.

At that moment not a single sad thought entered my mind; I forgot my privation and felt soothed by the sight of the harbour, which lay there lovely and peaceful in the semi-darkness.

No, what I should really like to do right now, in the full blaze of lights, before this illustrious assembly, is to shower every one of you with gifts, with flowers, with offerings of poetry – to be young once more, to ride on the crest of the wave.