Halldor Laxness Quotes

Iceland, Writer
April 23, 1902 – February, 8, 1998.

Halldór Kiljan Laxness (Icelandic: [ˈhaltour ˈcʰɪljan ˈlaxsnɛs] (About this sound listen); born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was a twentieth-century Icelandic writer. Laxness wrote poetry, newspaper articles, plays, travelogues, short stories, and novels. Major influences included August Strindberg, Sigmund Freud, Knut Hamsun, 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.

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

Halldor Laxness
- Simple
- Always
- Matter
I feel a physical happiness when spring is coming.

Halldor Laxness
- Happiness
- Feel
- Spring

My thoughts fly to the old Icelandic storytellers who created our classics, whose personalities were so bound up with the masses that their names, unlike their lives' work, have not been preserved for posterity.

Halldor Laxness
- Up
- Work
- Thoughts
Love of, and respect for, the humble routine of everyday life and its creatures was the only moral commandment which carried conviction when I was a child.

Halldor Laxness
- Life
- Love
- Respect
Some things in literature are inexplicable.

Halldor Laxness
- Things
- Literature
- Some
From the very first, my countrymen have followed my literary career, now criticizing, now praising my work, but hardly ever letting a single word be buried in indifference.

Halldor Laxness
- Work
- Career
- Single
I spent my entire childhood in an environment in which the mighty of the earth had no place outside story books and dreams.

Halldor Laxness
The world is a song, but we do not know whether it is a good song because we have nothing to compare it with.

Halldor Laxness
- World
- Good
- Song