Quotes from Kristin Lavransdatter

“All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“God will find you,” said the priest quietly. “Stay calm and do not flee from Him who has been seeking you before you even existed in your mother’s womb.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Feelings of longing seemed to burst from her heart; they ran in all directions, like streams of blood, seeking out paths to all the places in the wide landscape where she had lived, to all her sons roaming through the world, to all her dead lying under the earth.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“But I didn’t realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“For I've realized more and more with each year I've lived: There is no worthier work for the person who has been geared with the ability to see even a small part of God's mercy than to serve Him and to keep vigil and to pray for those people whose sight is still clouded by the shadow of worldly matters.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“the world is just as harsh a taskmaster as any other lord, and in the end it’s a lord without mercy.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“The blood that ran down from the cross in redemption for all sins and penance for all sorrows—that was the visible sign.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“you mustn’t believe, Kristin, that there has ever been a priest who has not had to guard himself against the Fiend at the same time as he tried to protect the lambs from the wolf.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' "
He crowed these words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edvin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart.
The monk laughed himself:
"Ay, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: 'Ubi, ubi, ubi.'
"But the goat bleated, and said: 'Betlem, Betlem, Betlem.'
"And the sheep so longed to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: 'Eamus, eamus!'
"And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. 'Volo, volo, volo!' it said.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Stay calm and do not flee from Him who has been seeking you before you even existed in your mother’s womb.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Yes, well... I suppose the man who owns nothing is free."
Gunnulf replied, "A man's possessions own him more than he owns them.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“I'm not to blame, Ramborg, if a man's heart is created in such a fashion that whatever is inscribed on it when it's young and fresh is carved deeper than all the runes that are later etched.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“All that had happened and would happen was meant to be. Everything happens as it is meant to be.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“She had finally come so far that she seemed to be seeing her own life from the uppermost summit of a mountain pass. Now her path led down into the darkening valley, but first she had been allowed to see that in the solitude of the cloister and in the doorway of death someone was waiting for her who had always seen the lives of people the way villages look from a mountain crest. He had seen sin and sorrow, love and hatred in their hearts, the way the wealthy estates and poor hovels, the bountiful acres and the abandoned wastelands are all borne by the same earth. And he had come down among them, his feet had wandered among the lands, stood in the castles and in huts, gathering the sorrows and sins of the rich and the poor, and lifting them high up with him on the cross." (1081)”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“She walked as if through a forest. The pillars were furrowed like ancient trees, and into the woods the light seeped, colorful and as clear as song, through the stained-glass windows. High overhead animals and people frolicked in the stone foliage, and angels played their instruments. At an even higher, more dizzying height, the vaults of the ceiling arched upward, lifting the church toward God ... The song cut through her like a blinding light. Now she saw how deep in the dust she lay.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Many different thoughts rise up in the darkness - like those gossamer plants that grow in the lake, oddly bewitching and pretty as they bob and sway; but enticing and sinister, they exert a dark pull as long as they're growing in the living, trickling mire. ANd yet as long as they're nothing but slimey brown clumps when the children pull them in to the boat. So many strange thoughts, both terrifying and enticing, grow in the night.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Help me, Gunnulf,” begged Kristin. She was white to the very edge of her lips. “I don’t know my own will.” “Then say: Thy will be done,” replied the priest softly.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“His heart sang in his breast; his soul felt like a bride in the arms of the bridegroom. He realized full well that this would not last. No man could live on earth in this manner for long. And he had received each hour of that bright springtime like a pledge—a merciful promise that would strengthen his endurance when the skies darkened over him and the road led down into a dark ravine, through roaring rivers and cold snowdrifts.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“But it looked as if Brother Edvin had become so wrinkled simply from smiling at people. Kristin thought she had never seen anyone who looked so cheerful or so kind. He seemed to carry within him a luminous and secret joy, and she was able to share it whenever he spoke.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“By the grace of God, we two unworthy souls were joined together in holy marriage. Branded by the flames of sin, bowed by the burdens of sin, we came together at the portals of God’s house; together we received the Savior’s Host from the hand of the priest. Should I now complain if God is testing my faith? Should I now think about anything else but that I am his wife and he is my husband for as long as we both shall live?”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Christ, you who were crucified! Now I have given up everything that could bind me. And I have placed myself in your hands, if you would find my life worthy enough to be freed from its servitude to Satan. Take me so that I may feel that I am your slave, for then I will possess you in return.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Now her path led down into the darkening valley, but first she had been allowed to see that in the solitude of the cloister and in the doorway of death someone was waiting for her who had always seen the lives of people the way villages look from a mountain crest. He had seen sin and sorrow, love and hatred in their hearts, the way the wealthy estates and poor hovels, the bountiful acres and the abandoned wastelands are all borne by the same earth. And he had come down among them, his feet had wandered among the lands, stood in castles and in huts, gathering the sorrows and sins of the rich and the poor, and lifting them high up with him on the cross. Not my happiness or my pride, but my sin and my sorrow, oh sweet Lord of mine. She looked up at the crucifix, where it hung high overhead, above the triumphal arch.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“He felt as if the roots of his own life were intertwined with those of his brothers and sisters, somewhere deep down in the dark earth. Every blow that struck, every injury that ate away at the marrow of one of them was felt by all.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“In the middle of the night she woke up when her father touched her shoulder in the dark.
"Get up," he said quietly. "Do you hear it?"
Then she heard the singing at the corners of the house - the deep, full tone of the moisture-laden south wind. Water was streaming off the roof, and the rain whispered as it fell on soft, melting snow.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“But these events had touched her so little - like the echo of thunder from the mountains after a storm had passed over the countryside and was far away.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Saint Olav turned her eyes toward Christ on the cross—see, Kristin: God’s love.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Prayers, fasts, everything he had practiced because he had been taught to do so, suddenly seemed new to him—weapons in a glorious war for which he longed. Perhaps he would become a monk—or a priest”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“They received food from the monks at the churches they visited, and when they drank the blood-red wine and broke off the golden crust from the bread made of wheat, all four priests from the barley lands understood why Christ had honored wine and wheat, which were purer than all other foodstuffs that God had given humankind, by manifesting himself in their likeness during the holy communion.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

“Are you so arrogant that you think yourself capable of sinning so badly that God’s mercy is not great enough? . . .”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter

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