Quotes from Giants in the Earth

O.E. Rølvaag ·  560 pages

Rating: (4.5K votes)


“When the quarrel had finally worn itself out they had found themselves at opposite ends of the earth, though lying side by side in the same bed.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“Many and incredible are the tales the grandfathers tell from those days when the wilderness was yet untamed, and when they, unwittingly, founded the Kingdom.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“A feeling of unfathomable loneliness settled upon her.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“Here was the endless prairie, so rich in its blessings of fertility, but also full of great loneliness--a form of freedom which curiously affected the minds of strangers, especially those to whom the Lord had given a sad heart.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“But more to be dreaded than this tribulation was the strange spell of sadness which the unbroken solitude cast upon the minds of stone.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth



“People had never dwelt here, people would never come; never could they find home in this vast, wind-swept void.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“The explanation was plain; this desolation out here called forth all that was evil in human nature.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“The caravan headed for the sky; it steered straight onward. Now, at last, Per Hansa had time to look about him and rejoice in what he saw... All he saw was beautiful”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“Tish-ah!" said the grass. "Tish-ah, tish-ah!" Never had it said anything else--never would it say anything else. It bent resiliently under the trampling feet; it did not break, but it complained aloud every time--for nothing like this had ever happened to it before.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“An endless plain. From Kansas--Illinois, it stretched, far into the Canadian North, God alone knows how far; from the Mississippi River to the wester Rockies, miles without number... Endless...beginningless.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth



“Everything he had planted that spring was blooming like a garden. Why, he could just hear the potatoes grow!”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“But it had been as if a resistless flood had torn them loose from their foundations and was carrying them helplessly along on it's current---flinging them here and there, hurling them madly onward, with no known destination ahead.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


“It seemed plain to her now that human life could not endure in this country.”
― O.E. Rølvaag, quote from Giants in the Earth


About the author

O.E. Rølvaag
Born place: in Dønna, Nordland, Norway
Born date April 27, 1876
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