Karen Blixen Quotes

Perhaps to them the first condition for anything having real charm was this: that it must not really exist.

When I heard this I became very sad, but I thought that now I would indeed have to take him with me so that the Virgin herself could enlighten him.

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.

The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequealled nobility.

I turned to the animal world from the world of men; my heart was heavy with the tragedy of the night.

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.

Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother.

And I had by now become used to the idea of witchcraft, it seemed a reasonable thing, so many things are about, at night, in Africa.

When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.

I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.

Where, My Lord, is music bred - upon the instrument or within the ear that listens? The loveliness of woman is created in the eye of man.

There is a particular hapiness in giving a man whom you like very much, good food that you have cooked yourself.

I know of a cure for everything: salt water ... in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.

Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.

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

Much which is unworthy in human life might be avoided if people would only accustom themselves to talking in verse

Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.

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

A medal is an inconvenient thing to give to a naked man, because he has got no place to fix it on to.

There are things which cannot be carried through even with the good will of everybody concerned

We must leave our mark on life while we have it in our power.

A great artist is never poor.

To die for the one you loved was an effort too sweet for words.

For really, dreaming is the well-mannered people's way of committing suicide.

Here I am, where I ought to be.

I have conquered them all, but I am standing amongst graves

In a world of fools, I was, I think, to him one of the greater fools.

Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.

Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best.

It is difficult to restrain admirers of Shakespeare once they have begun to speak of him.