The Emigrants Quotes

“أينما تذهب سوف أذهب، وحيث تموت سأموت، وهناك سيكون مدفني”
― Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

“It was a loathsome accusation if true, and still more loathsome if untrue.”
― Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

“Besides the 254 peasants and cotters who owned and lived on assessed land, there were 39 persons listed as artisans and apprentices, 92 squatters, 11 enlisted soldiers, 6 innkeepers, 5 horse traders, 3 house-to-house peddlers. There were also 274 farm servants, 23 bedesmen and bedeswomen, 104 “ordinary poor,” 18 sick and crippled, 11 deaf and dumb, 8 blind, 6 nearly blind, 13 almost lame, 4 lame, 5 near idiots, 3 idiots, 1 half idiot, 3 whores and 2 thieves. On the last page of the church book, under the heading “End of the Parish,” were listed 27 persons who had moved away and never been further heard from.”
― Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

“The ones she had borne into the world, and the ones they in turn would bear, would from the beginning of their lives say what her own tongue was unable to say: At home here in America-back there in Sweden. With this thought, listening to her children's breathing, Kristina went to sleep.”
― Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants

“A long time elapsed, and the parents had not mentioned the name of their dead child. They never spoke of the little girl they had lost; their sorrow would have become doubly heavy if it had been brought out into clear daylight, and its power acknowledged. Now they tried to push it away, not let it penetrate beyond thought. As long as words didn't help, why use them? Exchanged between two mourning people, they were only a dissonant sound, disturbing the bitter consolation of silence.”
― Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants