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Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen Quotes

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Famous Isak Dinesen Quotes

“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.”

IfsLongBodyDifficultAttitudeMovementBirdRedLegsFlyingTraditionalNecksBizarreCurvesExquisiteTwigsLong LegsOleanders
Book:Out of Africa
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“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

IfsKnowsLooksChildrenDoeFacesLyingSongGamesNamesAirFieldsColorMoonShadowCoffeeLike MeHillsEaglesFull MoonNew MoonQuiverGiraffeGravel
Author:Isak Dinesen
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“I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.”

IfsWayWritingMindLongSelfCountryStoriesRomanceYoungEnergyInstinctTalesEveningSmokeFairyFarmsFairy TaleOther CountriesPreservationLong WayDuskSelf Preservation
Author:Isak Dinesen
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“It is a sad hardship and slavery to people who live in towns, that in their movements they know of one dimension only; they walk along the line as if they were led on a string. The transition from the line to the plane into the two dimensions, when you wander across a field or through a wood, is a splendid liberation to the slaves, like the French Revolution. But in the air you are taken into the full freedom of the three dimensions; after long ages of exile and dreams the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space.”

PeopleIfsKnowsHeartLongTwoDreamAgeThreeLinesSpaceWalksTakenAirMovementFieldsRevolutionArmsTownsSlaverySlaveWoodsWanderLiberationPlanesDimensionsStringsHardshipTransitionExileSplendidFrench RevolutionHomesickThree Dimensions
Book:Out of Africa
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“I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.”

IfsKnowsWorldRememberOrderGirlKnowingMysterySittingEmptyTalesShipsMy TimeCharmingSailingTorchesBarrelsPowderMystery Of LifeMutiny
Author:Isak Dinesen
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“There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive. One only feels really free when one can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, to get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night.”

IfsFeelsNightFallNextForgetViewsHalfAliveTreeSorrowGratitudePleaseRiversDrunkBottlesCampsChampagneHeartfeltSafariHeartfelt Gratitude
Author:Isak Dinesen
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