Skip to content

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.

— Halldór Laxness Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Another quote →

More quotes by Halldór Laxness

Yes, it is a painful lot to be a poet and to love both God and man by the farthest northern seas!

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)

Flowers are immortal. You cut them in autumn and they grow again in spring—somewhere.

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Although grace comes from above, that is not to say that everyone has the ability to accept to it.

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940)

One of the first things I had been taught as a child was never to believe a single word that was written in newspapers.

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

It's an old saying that one still has to know something, despite everything.

Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

All Halldór Laxness quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Halldór Laxness (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.