Halldór Laxness quotes - page 4

"And so it went on, day after day. This was not the first time that those who had at first smiled at him turned their backs on him and began to think of themselves isntead of thinking of him. Sometimes it was as if you understood people's souls; a few days later, you understood nothing. One day you were kissed, and it meant everything; next day, you were not kissed.... He consoled himself by looking at his exercise books with the poems approaching the thousand total soon, and more. Perhaps the world would some day understand that the heart existed. Some day. (Halldór Laxness)
I didn't expect you to have learnt to smile yet. When one is born, one only knows how to cry. It's only very gradually that one learns to smile. View quote
Halldór Laxness
It is a waste of words to try to impute to the Creator democratic ideas or social virtues; or to think that one can move Him with weeping and wailing, and persuade Him with logic and legal quibbles. Nothing is so pointless as words. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Genuine gold does not exist, children,” he said. "Gold is by its nature not genuine. View quote
Halldór Laxness
For man is essentially alone, and one should pity him and love him and grieve with him. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Jesus! My brother! Heave-up! View quote
Halldór Laxness
In the afterlife, people never forget to feed the dog. View quote
Halldór Laxness
A good pony can occur on a farm once in a generation, with luck; but on some farms, never in a thousand years. From the sea, beyond the sands and marshes, for a thousand years, the murmur was always the same. View quote
Halldór Laxness
I came to you a crossbearer on a stretcher and an outcast from humanity, and I went from you a conqueror of life. View quote
Halldór Laxness
A married man has only one duty towards his wife in order to make her happy, and that is to ensure that she is constantly pregnant, and with a child in her arms. View quote
Halldór Laxness
These people, who have since antiqui possessed the most distinguished litteras in the northern part of the world, choose now to walk upon calfskin or to eat calfskin rather than to read the old words written upon calfskin. (Halldór Laxness)
Isn't it funny how everyone manages to die except me? View quote
Halldór Laxness
Often the boy was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable yearning to write down in books everything he saw, despite what anyone said-two hundred books as thick as the Book of Sermons, whole Bibles, whole chests full of books. View quote
Halldór Laxness
I say, and have always said, and will always say: the fish that does not sing throughout the whole world is a dead fish. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Thank the Lord, we subsidize our own debauchery first of all before we subsidize the debauchery of others. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humor he always listens to, even though it be ill humor. A typical Icelander, perhaps. View quote
Halldór Laxness
"Thereafter, when he himself was dead, he imagined that his poems would be published in some mysterious way, and the nation would read them for comfort in adversity, as it had read the poems of other poets before him; it was his highest wish that his poems could help those as unfortunate as himself to have patience to endure. View quote
Halldór Laxness
How wonderful it can be, and what nobility it proves in young men, when they pledge one another a friendship that can never be shadowed by selfishness, envy, or jealousy. View quote
Halldór Laxness
I have always felt that I was different from others. I felt it when I was small. I felt that there was a soul in me. I saw the world from a height of many thousand meters. Even when I was thrashed it was of no concern to me; I could tuck Reykjavik under my arm and go away with it. View quote
Halldór Laxness
I hope that famous critics will not class me with certain devotees of death and doom if I say here that I think that funerals in our churchyard gave me more entertainment than most other things when I was a little boy. View quote
Halldór Laxness
"Jón Hreggviðsson said that he himself never read except when he was forced to do so, though he had learned from his mother all the necessary sagas, ballads, and old genealogies, and he claimed to be descended from Haraldur Hilditönn, the Danish king, on his father's side. He said that he would never forget such excellent ancients as Gunnar of Hlíðarendi, King Pontus, and Örvar-Oddur, who were twelve ells high and could have lived to be three hundred years old if they hadn't run into any trouble, and that if he had such a book he would send it immediately for free to the king and his counts, to prove to them that there had indeed once been real men in Iceland. (Halldór Laxness)
Once upon a time these two men had been in the same situation; now the difference between them was like the difference between a wish and its fulfillment. The one was what the other had dreamed of, and therefore they did not know one another anymore. He who has wishes yearns for a friend; but when the wishes have been fulfilled, the friends are the first thing we forget. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Slowly, slowly winter day opens his arctic eye. View quote
Halldór Laxness
Dear Snæfríður, is it not clear to you how disastrous your words were, when you said just now that you do not fear the eye of God watching over you? View quote
Halldór Laxness
Because there are indeed women in Iceland, it will now be proven to you, you ugly wench, that there are also men in Iceland! View quote
Halldór Laxness