About Sigrid Undset: Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.
She [Catherine of Siena] found a place of refuge in a lonely wood, where some hermits lived. It is generally thought that this brotherhood was the community of hermits in Vallombrosa, founded by St. John Gualbert, the man who had spared the life of h...
Catherine [of Siena] sent the Pope five oranges which she had candied and covered with gold leaf... She develops the theme of the difference between the bitter and the sweet pain, and gives the Pope a recipe for making candied oranges.
And she felt joy bubbling up in her heart—that the world was so full of sunshine and beauty and gladness. And she had put herself outside it, banished herself to her corner. For all that, it was a good thing that it was so good to live—for the ot...
God grant ... that he may learn to understand in time, that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed.
Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' " He crowed these words so like a cock that...
Her heart felt as if it were breaking in her breast, bleeding and bleeding, young and fierce. From grief over the warm and ardent love which she had lost and still secretly mourned; from anguished joy over the pale, luminous love which drew her to th...
I've done many things that I thought I would never dare to do because they were sins. But I didn't realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people.
I rolled myself up into a tight ball of resistance and it was thus that I went through my school years.
And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all gree...
I was sent to a school because my father was already aware that his days were numbered, and he was anxious for me to acquire a good education and follow in his footsteps.
Most of my father's life consisted of traveling to almost every part of Europe.
I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.
