Karen Blixen Quotes in Out of Africa (1985)

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share

Karen Blixen Quotes:

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

  • Denys: You've ruined it for me, you know.

    Karen Blixen: Ruined what?

    Denys: Being alone.

  • Karen Blixen: When you go away... you don't always go on safari, do you? Just want to be away.

    Denys: It's not meant to hurt you.

    Karen Blixen: It does.

    Denys: I'm with you because I choose to be with you. I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life.

  • Karen Blixen: It's an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.

  • Baron Bror Blixen: That's a fine kiss goodbye.

    Karen Blixen: I'm better at hello.

  • [last lines]

    Karen Blixen: The mail has come today, and a friend writes this to me.

    [Quoting from the letter:]

    Karen Blixen: "The Masai have reported to the district commissioner at Ngong, that many times, at sunrise and sunset, they have seen lions on Finch-Hatton's grave. A lion and a lioness have come there, and stood or lain on the grave for a long time. After you went away, the ground around the grave was leveled out into a sort of terrace. I suppose that the level place makes a good site for the lions. From there, they have a view over the plain, and the cattle and the game on it."... Denys will like that. I must remember to tell him.

  • Karen Blixen: 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?

  • Baron Bror Blixen: You're not going to fall in love are you?

    Karen Blixen: Not with someone who's always leaving.

  • [about to leave Africa, Karen Blixen gives Denys' compass to Farah]

    Karen Blixen: This is very dear to me. It has helped me to find my way.

    Farah: Thank you, Msabu.

    [She goes to board the train. Looks back at him]

    Karen Blixen: I want to hear you say my name.

    Farah: You are Karin, Msabu.

  • Karen Blixen: [Voiceover] I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.

  • Karen Blixen: What's wrong with marriage anyway?

    Denys: Have you ever seen one you admire?

    Karen Blixen: Yes, I have, many. Belfield's, for one.

    Denys: He sent her home for the rains in 1910. Didn't tell her they were over until 1913.

  • Karen Blixen: If you say anything now... I'll believe it.

    [to Denys, immediately after they kiss in her tent]

  • Karen Blixen: He even took the gramophone on safari. Three rifles, supplies for a month, and Mozart.

  • Karen Blixen: Oh! get away from there! Shoo Shoo!

    Denys: Shoo?

    Karen Blixen: Oh! That's all my crystal, my Limoges.

  • Denys: Don't move.

    Karen Blixen: But I want to move.

    Denys: Don't move.

  • Denys: [to Karen, whose horse has run away, leaving her at the mercy of an approaching lion] I wouldn't run. If you do, she'll think you're something good to eat.

    Karen Blixen: [staring at lion] Have you - Do you have a gon ?

    Denys: She won't like the smell of you.

    Karen Blixen: Shoot - shoot it.

    Denys: She's had breakfast.

    Karen Blixen: Please shoot her.

    Denys: Well, let's give her a moment.

    Karen Blixen: [as lion comes closer] Oh my god, shoot her !

    [Lion approaches Karen then wanders off into brush]

    Karen Blixen: Just how much closer did you expect to let her come ?

    Denys: A bit. It wanted to see if you'd run. That's how they decide. A lot like people that way.

    Karen Blixen: She almost had me for lunch !

    Denys: Well, it wasn't her fault, baroness. She's a lion.

    Karen Blixen: Well, it wasn't mine.

    Denys: Doesn't that outfit come with a rifle ?

    Karen Blixen: Ye-ah, uh.

    [looks around]

    Karen Blixen: On my saddle.

    Denys: Better keep it with you. Your horse isn't much of a shot.

  • Denys: This tribe, we think we can tame them but we won't. They die in prison.

    Karen Blixen: Why?

    Denys: They live now. They have no concept of the future; that one day they will be let out. They think it's permanent and so they die.

  • Karen Blixen: I had a farm in Africa.

  • Karen Blixen: Forget it. This water lives in Mombassa anyway.

  • Karen Blixen: Is there a prince in there?

Browse more character quotes from Out of Africa (1985)

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share

Characters on Out of Africa (1985)