Quotes by Knut Hamsun

About Knut Hamsun:

Knut Hamsun was 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.
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Was it really right to look the way he did? His prominent nose was altogether too immodest for his humble position in life; and he let his hair grow right through the winter so that he appeared more and more artistic. His fiancée reacted by saying t...

Knut Hamsun

That room was Rolandsen’s world. Rolandsen was not just irresponsibility and inebriation, he was also great thinker and inventor. There was a smell of acids that permeated the corridor and came to the notice of every visitor. Rolandsen made no secr...

Knut Hamsun

They walked away from the sea, Rolandsen in the lead. He kept to the edge of the road, in the snow, to leave room for the others. He was wearing light, fashionable shoes, but seemed unperturbed; he even had his coat unbuttoned in the chilly May wind....

Knut Hamsun

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.

Knut Hamsun

He was quite a Casanova, no doubt about it. He was in a very good mood today and stopped longer than usual. The girls could see he was gloriously drunk. ’Well, Ragna, why do you think I come here so often?’ asked Rolandsen. ’I’ve no idea,’ ...

Knut Hamsun

He was hungry, and his first thought was to collect a dozen or two gulls’ eggs to make a meal. But embryo chicks were forming in all of them. So he rowed out to do some fishing and was more succesful. He lived on fish from day to day and sang and w...

Knut Hamsun

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

Knut Hamsun

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.

Knut Hamsun

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.

Knut Hamsun

Living means constantly growing closer to death. Satisfaction only temporarily relieves hunger. Find the balance, and plant your feet.

Knut Hamsun

Sometimes in life, as in literature, people get their just desserts. The greedy man loses everything because he cannot resist seeking more riches.

Knut Hamsun

I opened my eyes; how could I keep them shut when I could not sleep? The same darkness brooded over me; the same unfathomable black eternity which my thoughts strove against and could not understand. I made the most despairing efforts to find a word ...

Knut Hamsun

She collapsed at the bottom of the trail, at the edge of the ghost town. Dekka sat on Edilio and pressed down on the wound. The force of the blood was weaker now. She could almost hold the blood back now, not a good thing, no, because it meant he was...

Knut Hamsun

What do you mean by yuanfen?" She thought for a minute and replied, "It means: that apportionment of love which is destined for you in this world.

Knut Hamsun

Which was how Britteny ended up nestled next to Mickey, under the shelter of a painter's drop cloth. She felt no pain. She saw no light. She heard, but barely. Her heart was still and silent. Yet she did not die.

Knut Hamsun

If God gives you a Quiznos, can I have a bite? No way. You have to pray for your own food.

Knut Hamsun

Brianna dropped the skateboard in front of Sam. "Don't worry: I won't let you fall off." "Yeah? Then why did you bring the helmet?" Brianna tossed it to him. "In case you fall off.

Knut Hamsun

Thou art hunger, yo. Make with the starvation.

Knut Hamsun

The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a pr...

Knut Hamsun

A smile flitted across War's mouth, hidden by her helmet. She had little patience for religion (although she approved heartily of the religious fanatics who sought to cleanse the world of heresy), and the only faith War had was in cold steel and hot ...

Knut Hamsun

Author Bio

  • NameKnut Hamsun
  • DescriptionNorwegian novelist and Nobel Prize recipient
  • BornAugust 4, 1859
  • DiedFebruary 19, 1952
  • CountryNorway
  • ProfessionWriter
  • WorksHunger
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature