Halldór Laxness - World Light (1969)

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A married man has only one duty towards his wife in order to make her happy, and that is to ensure that she is constantly pregnant, and with a child in her arms.

Halldór Laxness
Do you know that these mountains you're looking at don't really exist at all? Or can't you see that they belong more to the sky than the earth? All this enchanting blueness which enthralls you is an illusion.

Halldór Laxness
This summer which was now passing—never had anyone lived such a summer! Nature had given him the happiness of a blossom. She gave him love and a palace, and put precious poetry into his mouth; it was all one long, unbroken romance. And now everything was lost, his poems, his love and his palace, withered, burnt; forlorn and helpless, he faced the desolation of winter.

Halldór Laxness
And so it went on, day after day. This was not the first time that those who had at first smiled at him turned their backs on him and began to think of themselves instead of thinking of him. Sometimes it was as if you understood people's souls; a few days later, you understood nothing. One day you were kissed, and it meant everything; next day, you were not kissed.... He consoled himself by looking at his exercise books with the poems approaching the thousand total soon, and more. Perhaps the world would some day understand that the heart existed. Some day.

Halldór Laxness
Time passed and there was really no romance in life anymore, only the tedious tranquility of marriage without excitement or curiosity, the dull routine of making a comfortable living with nothing to nourish the imagination.

Halldór Laxness
I came to you a crossbearer on a stretcher and an outcast from humanity, and I went from you a conqueror of life.

Halldór Laxness
It's you who are strange. Talking to you is like talking to someone who has no shadow.

Halldór Laxness
Icelanders! You are the descendants of Nordic vikings! Down with Irish slaves!

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

Halldór Laxness
Thereafter, when he himself was dead, he imagined that his poems would be published in some mysterious way, and the nation would read them for comfort in adversity, as it had read the poems of other poets before him; it was his highest wish that his poems could help those as unfortunate as himself to have patience to endure.

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

Halldór Laxness
Once upon a time these two men had been in the same situation; now the difference between them was like the difference between a wish and its fulfillment. The one was what the other had dreamed of, and therefore they did not know one another anymore. He who has wishes yearns for a friend; but when the wishes have been fulfilled, the friends are the first thing we forget.

Halldór Laxness
The poet felt completely free now as he stood there on the deck in his collar and boots, sailing past new and ever newer districts; even if he did not own this land's resources, he owned its beauty.

Halldór Laxness
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
They thought I was an Icelander! But I'm no Icelander, s'help me!

Halldór Laxness
It may well be that fighting is normal, like having something to eat. Peace, on the other hand, is a luxury.

Halldór Laxness
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.

Halldór Laxness
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
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
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).

Halldór Laxness
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