Sigrid Undset

“It has been the fate of many a man,” said Naakkve, “that those who were his fiercest opponents in life found success on the road he had pointed out to them—but only after they had made him into fodder for the worms. After his mouth was stuffed with earth, the lesser men no longer shrank from affirming the truth of his words.”

It’s useless to be frightened; fearful men are half dead already.

She had not come to God with her wreath or with her sins and sorrows, not as long as the world still possessed a drop of sweetness to add to her goblet. But now she had come, after she had learned that the world is like an alehouse: the person who has no more to spend is thrown outside the door.

Everyone expected the greatest benefits for the realm of Norway now that they would once again have a king who was reared and lived among them, who would protect the laws and rights and interests of the country instead of squandering his time, energies, and the wealth of the kingdom on incursions in other lands.

With the words Sira Eiliv had spoken the day before still in her mind, she suddenly realized that as fearful as she had been for her reckless sons and as sternly as she had often admonished them because she was tormented with anguish for their sakes, she would have been less content with her children if they have been meek and timid.

Lord, if only you would give me this and this and this, then I will thank you and ask for nothing more except for this and this and this.…

She opened her eyes and looked at the ring lying in the dark palm of the smith. And her tears burst forth in torrents, for she felt as if she had never before fully understood what it signified. The life to which this ring had married her, over which she had complained and grumbled, raged and rebelled. And yet she had loved it so, rejoicing over it, with both the bad and the good, so that there was not a single day she would have given back to God without lament or a single sorrow she would have relinquished without regret.

Brother Nikulaus was also overjoyed. But at the same time Kristin heard other news about him that was not as good. He had laid hands on several farmers over by Steinker; they were in the midst of a dispute with the monastery about some fishing rights. When the monks came upon them one night as they were proceeding to destroy the monastery’s salmon pens, brother Nikulaus had given one man a beating and thrown another into the river, at the same time sinning gravely with his cursing.

They headed across the courtyard and over toward the cookhouse. Without thinking, they both walked as lightly and carefully as they could in the new snow.

Her eyes have been opened to the fact that after the burdens and toil of a young mother comes a new kind of fear and concern for the aging mother.

All fires burn out sooner or later.

Many a man is given what was intended for another, but no one is given another man’s fate.