Quotes from Halldor Laxness

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 and imagines he is telling the truth.

One can be one's own ghost and roam about in various places, sometimes many places simultaneously. Perhaps I didn't approach it quite correctly. A ghost is always the result of botched work; a ghost means unsuccessful resurrection, a shadow of an image that has perhaps once been alive, a kind of abortion in the universe.

All birds are perhaps a little wrong, because an absolute once-and-for-all formula for a bird has never been found, just as all novels are bad because the correct formula for a novel has never been found.

But I was also very pleased when I heard the Prince of Montenegro got married the other day. I know perfectly well that I am nothing to anyone. But the middle finger is no longer than the pinkie if one measures both against infinity...

Quite so. On the other hand, I am like that horse that was dumbfounded for twenty-four hours. For a long time I thought I could never endure having survived. Then I went back to the pasture.

On the other hand I won't conceal the fact from anyone that once upon a time a little something happened to me. I saw a little something. But never except just that once.

It is a matter of simple fact that Icelanders have always been notoriously indolent.

Some things in literature are inexplicable.

I spent my entire childhood in an environment in which the mighty of the earth had no place outside story books and dreams.

For man is essentially alone, and one should pity him and love him and grieve with him.

You have fettered yourself of your own free will, man - break the fetters!

For man is essentially alone, and one should pity him and love him and grieve with him.

Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity.

Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes.

Whoever doesn't live in poetry cannot survive here on earth.

Þegar öllu er á botninn hvolft, þá fer allt einhvernveginn, þótt margur efist um það á tímabili.

The life of man is so short that ordinary people simply cannot afford to be born

Presently the small of coffee began to fill the room. This was morning's hallowed moment. In such a fragrance the perversity of the world is forgotten, and the soul is inspired with faith in the future…

He continued on, on to the glacier, towards the dawn, from ridge to ridge, in deep, new-fallen snow, paying no heed to the storms that might pursue him. As a child he had stood by the seashore at Ljósavík and watched the waves soughing in and out, but now he was heading away from the sea. "Think of me when you are in glorious sunshine." Soon the sun of the day of resurrection will shine on the bright paths where she awaits her poet. And beauty shall reign alone.

It's a useful habit never to believe more than half of what people tell you, and not to concern yourself with the rest. Rather keep your mind free and your path your own.

A free man can live on fish.Independence is better than meat

When a man has a flower in his life he builds a house.

Vont er þeirra ránglæti, verra þeirra réttlæti.

Þar sem jökulinn ber við loft hættir landið að vera jarðneskt, en jörðin fær hlutdeild í himninum, þar búa ekki framar neinar sorgir og þessvegna er gleðin ekki nauðsynleg, þar ríkir fegurðin ein, ofar hverri kröfu.