126 quotes
The most remarkable thing about man's dreams is that they all come true; this has always been the case, though no one would care to admit it.
Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935)
Suicide—masturbation multiplied by itself!
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)
Ólafur Kárason had always kept to himself and did not interfere in other people's affairs; it sometimes also happened that he was not very familiar with his own affairs.
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)
When I was in Bessastaðir I had a jug of water—and an ax. A well-sharpened ax is a fine tool. On the other hand I've never been fond of the gallows, and never less than when I wrestled a hanged man.
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946)
Of all the creatures that man kills for his amusement there is only one that he kills out of hatred—other men. Man hates nothing as much as himself. That is why war is called the leprosy of the human soul.
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
The correct understanding of life, let me tell you, is love despite everything. Love despite everything, that is the aim and object of life. Love, you see, is the only thing that pays in the long run, even though it might seem a dead loss in the short run.
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)
Oh no, better to be silent. That is what the glacier does. That is what the lilies of the field do.
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
The love which demands nothing but beauty itself and lives in selfless worship . . . is the love that no disappointment can ever conquer, perhaps not even death itself (if that existed).
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)
Never do hymns seem so long as in the days of childhood, never is their world and their language so alien to the soul. In old age the opposite is true, the hours are then too short for the hymns.
Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935)
Dust, who is not dust? I am dust. But I am your Member of Parliament, nevertheless.
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)
Curiosity can be called a virtue or a vice, depending on what kind of elementary ethics one reads; in our house at Brekkukot, curiosity was considered on a par with thievishness.
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)
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.
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946)
My image will soon be obliterated; it was only an illusion. But even though I may fall, even though my image may be obliterated, there is one thing that will never fall and can never be obliterated, and that is the yearning of those in chains for liberty.
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)
If there's one thing I despise, it's brennivín . . . [T]here no longer exists within me a single spark of longing for brennivín.
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946)
The people with whom I grew up in the Vestmannaeyjar carried heaven within themselves; even if it was sixty fathoms at the end of a rope down a cliff, fowling, they were at home in God's City of Zion.
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)
They thought I was an Icelander! But I'm no Icelander, s'help me!
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)
The difference between a novelist and a historian is this: that the former tells lies deliberately and for the fun of it; the historian tells lies in his simplicity and imagines he is telling the truth.
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
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.
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
People have kept on asking me: did he sing well? I reply, the world is a song, but we do not know whether it is a good song because we have nothing to compare it with.
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)
Oh, it's so good to be dead!
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)