“A tiny light had been lit in a cottage on Álftanes; probably someone was going out fishing. Often there was frost and frozen snow, and the ice creaked in the night. Somewhere out in the infinite distance lay the spring, at least in God's mind, like the babies that are not yet conceived in the mother's womb.”
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)
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Halldór Laxness216
Icelandic author 1902–1998Related quotes
Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer
Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer
Source: Emir's Education In The Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979), p. 65-66
“Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
Frozen by distance.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Address to Kilchurn Castle.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Gus Van Sant (1952) American film director, producer, photographer and musician
Source: Good Will Hunting
Yasunari Kawabata book Snow Country
First lines (as translated by Edward Seidensticker).
Snow Country (1948)
“Spring passes
and the birds cry out—tears
in the eyes of fishes”
Bashō Matsuo book Oku no Hosomichi
行く春や
鳥啼き魚の
目は泪
yuku haru ya
tori naki uo no
me wa namida
Matsuo Bashō, Narrow Road to the Interior and other writings, Boston, 2000, p. 4 (Translation: Sam Hamill)
Spring is passing by!
Birds are weeping and the eyes
Of fish fill with tears.
Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku, Tokyo, 1996, p. 23 (Translation: Donald Keene)
The passing of spring—
The birds weep and in the eyes
Of fish there are tears.
Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 310 (Translation: Donald Keene)
Oku no Hosomichi