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Halldór Laxness Quotes
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Halldór Kiljan Laxness was a twentieth-century Icelandic writer. Laxness wrote poetry, newspaper articles, plays, travelogues, short stories, and novels. Major influences included August Strindberg, Sigmund Freud, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Bertolt Brecht and Ernest Hemingway. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; he is the only Icelandic Nobel laureate.

✵ 23. April 1902 – 8. February 1998   •   Other names هالدور لاکسنس, Հալդոր Լաքսնես
Halldór Laxness photo
Halldór Laxness: 216   quotes 5   likes

Halldór Laxness Quotes

“Was this perhaps life, then?—to have loved one summer in youth and not to have been aware of it until it was over, some sea-wet footprints on the floor and sand in the prints, the fragrance of a woman, soft loving lips in the dusk of a summer night, sea birds; and then nothing more; gone.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Love , Life , Youth , Bird

“How much can one sacrifice for the sake of one's pride? Everything, of course—if one is proud enough.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

“The mountain reminds one of an upturned earthenware bowl, the glazing a little bluish at times, but sometimes like gold-rimmed transparent Chinese porcelain, especially if the sun is low in the west over the sea, because then the rays play on the glacier in two directions.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

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

Mountain , Time , Sun , Sea

“He called out for the others, but they were nowhere near. He tried to run, without knowing which way to go, but his legs were sluggish and the earth stood on end; in the next instant he found himself lying horizontal, his cheek in the dirt, without having felt himself fall. Then the earth tilted away from him again. He tried to walk steadily, but the earth continued to surge. Finally he sat down beneath a house-gable, leaned his back against the wall, and waited until the earth settled back in its place. He drooped his head and mumbled about his forefathers... In the end all he could do was start to sing the sad passion-hymns and death-prayers his mother had taught him in his youth.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Death , Youth , Sadness , Way

“Oh no, better to be silent. That is what the glacier does. That is what the lilies of the field do.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

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

“When I discovered that history is a fable, and a poor one at that, I started looking for a better fable, and found theology.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

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

History

“They thought I was an Icelander! But I'm no Icelander, s'help me!”

Halldór Laxness

Pétur Pálsson
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

“It's both ludicrous and embarrassing to recall one's youth.”

Halldór Laxness

Snæfríður
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Youth

“As a child he 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.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Beauty , Thinking , Sun , Sea

“You can take everything from me except the freedom to look up at the sky occasionally.”

Halldór Laxness

Ólafur
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Freedom

“Over verdant lowlands cut by the deep streamwaters of the south hangs a peculiar gloom. Every eye is stifled by the clouds that block the sight of the sun, every voice is muffled like the chirps of fleeing birds, every quasi-movement sluggish. Children must not laugh, no attention must be drawn to the fact that a man exists, one must not provoke the powers with frivolity—do nothing but prowl along, furtively, lowly. Maybe the Godhead had not yet struck its final blow, an unexpiated sin might still fester somewhere, perhaps there still lurked worms that needed to be crushed.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Children , Bird , Sun

“In the end one is no longer sure which is the greatest evildoer, the man who gets up early or the man who goes to bed late.”

Halldór Laxness

Steinar
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

“As a rule, the only way that anyone could escape from the castle of Bremerholm was through a dead-end opening: namely, the grave.</b”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Way , Dead

“So hopelessly incapable was I of understanding better folk that I did not even know how to keep a servile tongue in my head. In a flash there appeared before my mind the difference between the two worlds in which we lived, this woman and I; although I was staying under her roof we were such poles apart from one another that it was only with half justification possible to classify us together as human beings; we were both vertebrates, certainly, even mammals, but there all resemblance ended; any human society of which both of us were members was merely an empty phrase.</b”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

World , Understanding , Appearance

“Many a man may have his doubts for the moment, but when all comes to all and a long view is taken, one discovers usually that things have been making some sort of forward progress, some headway or other. And a man's dreams have a habit of coming true, more especially if he has made no particular effort to fulfill them ... It is particularly supposed that when a man has made himself worthy of living in a real house, he will be given a real house to live in; it sprouts out of the earth for him of its own accord, they say; life bestows on the individual all that he is worthy of, and the same is said to be true of the nation as a whole.”

Halldór Laxness

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part II: Years of Prosperity

Life , Dreams , Effort , Housing

“It is justice, not love, that will one day give life to the children of the future. The battle for justice is the one thing which gives human life rational meaning.”

Halldór Laxness

Örn Úlfar
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Love , Future , Life , Justice

“Icelanders are grateful to meet foreigners who have heard of their country. And even more grateful to hear someone say it deserves better.”

Halldór Laxness

Arnas Arnæus
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Country

“The truth displayed in a good life is the fairest of images.”

Halldór Laxness

Reverend Sigurður
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Life , Truth

“Every transgression is a game, every grief easy to bear compared with having discovered beauty; it was at once the crime that could never be atoned and the hurt that could never be assuaged, the tear that could never be dried.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Beauty , Game , Tear , Hurt

“For every day that God gives us, we thank the Lord of Hosts and His friend the Prophet, the latter of whom instituted here on earth a life of loveliness without envy or jealousy... We shall not give up this our life of loveliness, as long as we live, however much we are oppressed by the Government and its troops and policemen, its Congress and Senate, orators, newspaper scribes and authors, professors and paltry bishops, and even the antichrist himself, the Pope. No power on earth will succeed in preventing us from accomplishing God's sacred ordinances, as regards polygamy no less than all the other aspects that God has revealed to us. Polygamy as long as we live, say we women of Latter-Day Saints; polygamy or death!”

Halldór Laxness

the women of Spanish Fork
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

Life , Jealousy , God , Envy

“Was all human endeavor then, even the beautiful of the world, of so little consequence compared with murder?”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

World , Beauty

“Some voices never manage to break properly. But in all good men there lurks a true note, I won't say like a mouse in a trap, but rather like a mouse between wall and wainscoting.”

Halldór Laxness

Pastor Jóhann
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Men

“The boy felt now that no injustice could ever be victorious in his life in the future. He would never forget this presence, and even though he might never live to see another happy day, he was now more than ever determined to make his life an unbroken echo of what he had perceived when he was young, and to teach other men in poetry what he had learned in sorrow.... It was certainly true—this boy had perhaps become a little disappointed in people, he had instinctively believed that people were more perfect than they actually are; in childhood, one cannot help believing this.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Life , Men , People , Disappointment

“I don't know how to lie. But I don't know what truth is, either. I always try to speak the way I think will cause least trouble to God and men.”

Halldór Laxness

Ólafur talking to Vegmey
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Way , Thinking , Men , Truth

“There's no creature on earth so despicable and loathsome as a rich man with a conscience.”

Halldór Laxness

Hólmfríður
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

“He would have died of loneliness and other things if the divine Omnipotence had not called him whenever It had the chance and invited him to become one with the radiant glory of heaven and earth. He tried whenever the opportunity occurred to obey this call and allow his soul to become one with a higher world beyond this world. He did not compose poetry openly now—his first experience at that had taught him a lesson; he resolved not to compose poetry openly until he was grown up and living among good and high-minded men, whom he imagined must exist elsewhere. But that did not stop him composing poetry; he composed just for himself now. Sometimes he scratched out a whole verse on the ice. He committed to memory every scrap of poetry he heard, and absorbed everything to do with knowledge, and was determined to write it all down in books later on—you see, he had the idea that there were too few books in the world, and that somewhere in the world there were people waiting impatiently, hungry for more books to be written.</b”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Men , People , Books , World

“If there's one thing I despise, it's brennivín... [T]here no longer exists within me a single spark of longing for brennivín.”

Halldór Laxness

Magnús Sigurðsson
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

“All creation complains and moans, my dear lord Commissarius. Complaint is its distinctive sound.”

Halldór Laxness

the bishop of Skálholt
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

“I've never known justice to be used for anything other than the taking of poor men's lives. That's why I'm begging you, since you know how to speak to great men, to protect Jón Hreggviðson from justice.”

Halldór Laxness

Jón talking to Snæfríður
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Justice , Men

“The worth of any deed depends on how it is assessed by the onlookers... once you have made yourself look ridiculous, you go on being ridiculous whatever you do, perhaps for the rest of your life.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Life , Dependency

“The Icelanders never got anything in exchange from the Danes except hunger.”

Halldór Laxness

Jason Gottfreðsson
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Hunger

“When the peace of autumn has become poetic instead of being taken for granted, the last day of the plover become a matter of personal regret, the pony become associated with the history of art and mythology, the evening ice-film on the farm stream become reminiscent of crystal, and the smoke from the chimney become a message to us from those who discovered fire—then the time has come to say goodbye... I had long begun to count the days until I could once again leave home, where I felt an alien, and go out into the alien world, where I was at home. But still I paused for a while over my thoughts of departure, and listened to the silence that had robbed the gods of sleep; and dusk sank slowly over the ponies.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

God , World , Peace , Art

“Don't forget that few people are likely to tell more than a small part of the truth: no one tells much of the truth, let alone the whole truth. Spoken words are facts in themselves, whether true or false. When people talk they reveal themselves, whether they're lying or telling the truth.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

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

Truth , Falseness , People , Lying

“Suicide—masturbation multiplied by itself!”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

the organist
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Suicide

“A long time ago they brought me here eastward over the heath, along with one Jón Þeófílusson from the Westfjörds, who was burned after the devil testified against him. And I've got one thing to say about that: a ladies' man like him, who could sit up in the gables an entire night holding on to a Blusterer while his girl was in bed with another man, didn't deserve any better, and that's why I told him so many times in the black pit, 'You'll definitely be burned.'”

Halldór Laxness

Jón Hreggviðsson
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Girl , Night , Time

“It was a rather beggarly set of authorities that reinstated the charges against Christ's tenant two days later at that dreary place, Þingvellir by Öxará. Even the Danish proxy's booth was a shambles, as if the royal power no longer gave any thought to protecting its image of authoritarian splendor against Iceland's storms of wind and rain, which were so inseparable from its folk, crooked and frostbitten pieces of timberwood in the shape of humans. Iceland's weather was a mill that left nothing unpulverized but for the country's basalt peaks. It uprooted and demolished all human works, wiping away not only their color but also their form... The high court was convened in the dilapidated cottage that had once been called a courthouse. Its roof had been torn off, giving wind and rain free range throughout the hall. Mire that had run from the turf walls onto the rotten floorplanks hadn't been mucked out. Inward along the floorboards hobbled Jón Hreggviðsson from Rein, gray-haired, groaning, and puffing.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Color , Christ , Weather , Country

“Other children had fathers and mothers and honored them, and they prospered and lived to a ripe old age; but he was often bitter towards his father and mother and dishonored them in his heart. His mother had cuckolded his father, and his father had betrayed his mother, and both of them had betrayed the boy. The only consolation was that he had a Father in heaven. And yet—it would have been better to have a father on earth.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Children , Age , Boy , Heart

“You should deny facts if they're inconvenient.”

Halldór Laxness

Juél J. Juél
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

“My mother once sent me out to buy pepper, and I have not returned home yet.”

Halldór Laxness

Garðar Hólm
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Home

“You have a faint education look about you. An educated girl never has an educated look. I cannot stand an educated look on women. It's Communism. Look at me, I passed my University entrance, but I don't show it.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Madam Dulla
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Education , Communication , Universe , Women

“Often I think the Almighty is like a snow bunting abandoned in all weathers. Such a bird is about the weight of a postage stamp. Yet he does not blow away when he stands in the open in a tempest... He wields this fragile head against the gale, with his beak to the ground, wings folded close to his sides and his tail pointing upwards; and the wind can get no hold on him, and cleaves.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

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

Thinking , Weather , Bird

“The raven is the bird of all the gods. It was the bird of Odin and the bird of Jesus Christ. It will also be the bird of the god Skandilán, who has yet to be born. Whomever the raven rends attains salvation.”

Halldór Laxness

the poet at the Ölfus River
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

Christ , God , Bird

“In reality, no one had meant anything by talking to the parish pauper, none of them cared at all, no one even thought of carrying him downstairs to let him see the wedding like other folk; he was not allowed to see the wedding that he himself had brought about with his poetic talent—such is the lot of poets.</b”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book One: The Revelation of the Deity

Reality , Wedding

“He wandered away, weeping, away from the farm and up to the rocks at the foot of the mountain, quite overpowered by the evil that seems so often to prevail in life and even to rule it. But what do you think he heard from the rocks at the foot of the mountain? Why, he heard the most delightful singing!”

Halldór Laxness

excerpt from the mother's story in "Of Song"
Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book One, Part II: Free of Debt

Evil , Thinking , Mountain , Life

“Tonight when I listen to our voices in this strange calm which is touched with the presence of death, even though the breeze is rustling so innocently at the door and the roof, I feel as if we were two gods on the clouds of heaven, with mankind dying between us.”

Halldór Laxness

Ólafur
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

Feeling , God , Death

“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.”

Halldór Laxness

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

People , World , Singing

“To walk home alone at night is a disaster, in novels. Some girls confuse the state of being in love and being lonely, and think they are the former when in fact they are the latter; in love with everyone and no one, just because they are without a man.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Love , Home , Girl , Thinking

“After further consideration, the herd of ponies had left off being frightened at all and had calmed down, and were now grazing in the home pastures, on the grass fields and gravel banks or in the home meadow close up to the farm. I stood at the window in that autumn light that makes the dead and the living more sharply discernible than the light of any other season. Yes, what a well-sculptured creature the pony is, so finely carved that even if there were no more than half a chisel stroke extra the workmanship would be ruined; that curve from neck to rump, and all the way down to the fetlock, is in actual fact a woman's curve; in the oblique-set eyes of these creatures lies buried a wisdom that is hidden from men but blended with the mockery of the idols; around the muzzle and the underlip hovers the smile that no cinema shark has ever been able to reproduce; and where is the female star who smells as wonderful as the nose of a pony?</b”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Wisdom , Men , Smile , Way

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

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

“The glimmer continued to play about the vault of heaven. To the west one could see the roofs of nearby mansions and the tower of Our Lady's Church silhouetted against the dull red glow of embers in the darkness of the night.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Night