Isak Dinesen Quotes - Page 4

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

  Isak Dinesen

  Blessed, Home, Longing

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard”, p.10, Vintage

  23 Copy quote

• I belong to an ancient, idle, wild and useless tribe, perhaps I am even one of the last members of it, who for many thousands of years, in all countries and parts of the world, has, now and again, stayed for a time among the hard-working honest people in real life, and sometimes has thus been fortunate enough to create another sort of reality for them, which in some way or another, has satisfied them. I am a storyteller.

  Isak Dinesen

  Country, Real, Hard Work

  Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen (1987). “On Modern Marriage and Other Observations”

  8 Copy quote

• It is not the visions but the activity which makes you happy, and the joy and glory of the flier is the flight itself.

  Isak Dinesen

  Joy, Vision, Aviation

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  9 Copy quote

• When we are young the idea of death or failure is intolerable to us; even the possibility of ridicule we cannot bear. But we have also an unconquerable faith in our own stars, and in the impossibility of anything venturing to go against us. As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things, but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other. In this way a balance is obtained.

  Isak Dinesen

  Stars, Believe, Ideas

  5 Copy quote

• Some people have an unconquerable love of riddles. They may have the chance of listening to plain sense, or to such wisdom that explains life; but no, they must go and work their brains over a riddle, just because they do not understand what it means.

  Isak Dinesen

  Mean, People, Brain

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.19, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• The flamingoes are the most delicately colored of all the African birds, pink and red like a flying twig of an oleander bush. They have incredibly long legs and bizarre and recherché curves of their necks and bodies, as if from some exquisite traditional prudery they were making all attitudes and movements in life as difficult as possible.

  Isak Dinesen

  Attitude, Curves, Long

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

  10 Copy quote

• There is something about Safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows

  Isak Dinesen

  Sorrow, Safari, Forget

  26 Copy quote

• Be unswervingly and eternally loyal to the story.

  Isak Dinesen

  Loyalty, Stories, Loyal

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isak Dinesen

  Religious, Real, Thinking

  11 Copy quote

• A great artist is never poor.

  Isak Dinesen

  Artist, Poor, Great Artist

  5 Copy quote

• I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

  Isak Dinesen

  Bless, Thee, Prevailing Prayer

  Isak Dinesen (1952). “Out of Africa”

  7 Copy quote

• It is not a bad thing in a tale that you understand only half of it.

  Isak Dinesen

  Stories, Half, Tales

  Isak Dinesen (2002). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.337, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

• The lime trees were in bloom. But in the early morning only a faint fragrance drifted through the garden, an airy message, an aromatic echo of the dreams during the short summer night.

  Isak Dinesen

  Summer, Dream, Morning

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Winter's Tales”, p.37, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• It is impossible that a town will not play a part in your life, it does not even make much difference whether you have more good or bad things to say of it, it draws your mind to it, by a mental law of gravitation.

  Isak Dinesen

  Law, Play, Differences

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

  4 Copy quote

• As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things; but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other.

  Isak Dinesen

  Believe, Mind, Way

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Seven Gothic Tales”, p.10, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• You must not think that I feel, in spite of it having ended in such defeat, that my "life has been wasted" here, or that I would exchange it with that of anyone I know.

  Isak Dinesen

  Life, Thinking, Defeat

  4 Copy quote

• Within our whole universe the story only has the authority to answer that cry of heart of its characters, that one cry of heart of each of them: "Who am I?"

  Isak Dinesen

  Heart, Character, Stories

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.30, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• Man and woman are two locked caskets, of which each contains the key to the other.

  Isak Dinesen

  Men, Keys, Two

  Isak Dinesen (2001). “Winter's Tales”, p.334, Penguin UK

  8 Copy quote

• There is something strangely determinate and fatal about a single shot in the night. It is as if someone had cried a message to you in one word, and would not repeat it.

  Isak Dinesen

  Night, Messages, Sound

  Isak Dinesen (1963). “Out of Africa”

  4 Copy quote

• It is a good thing to be a great sinner. Or should human beings allow Christ to have died on the Cross for the sake of our petty lies and our paltry whorings

  Isak Dinesen

  Lying, Sake, Christ

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Last Tales”, p.51, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Human talk is a centrifugal function, ever in flight outwards from what is on the talker's mind.

  Isak Dinesen

  Mind, Flight, Function

  Isak Dinesen (2011). “Winter's Tales”, p.132, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• It is often the case with a new idea that when it comes knocking on society's door with modesty and the best premises for its existence, there is a tremendous outcry from inside.

  Isak Dinesen

  Ideas, Doors, Modesty

  Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen (1987). “On Modern Marriage and Other Observations”

  5 Copy quote

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

  Isak Dinesen

  Feet, Hills, Farms

  Out of Africa pt. 1, "The Ngong Farm" (1937)

  8 Copy quote

• It is when one begins to lose the consciousness of freedom, and when the idea of necessity enters the world at all, when there is any hurry or strain anywhere, a letter to be written or a train to catch, when you have got to work, to make the horses of the dream gallop, or to make the rifles go off, that the dream is declining, and turning into the nightmare, which belongs to the poorest and most vulgar class of dreams.

  Isak Dinesen

  Dream, Horse, Class

  Isak Dinesen (2001). “Out of Africa”, p.81, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

• The present is always unsettled, no one has had time to contemplate it in tranquillity . I was a painter before I was a writer and a painter never wants the subject right under his nose; he wants to stand back and study a landscape with half-closed eyes.

  Isak Dinesen

  Eye, Noses, Half

  4 Copy quote

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