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

— Halldór Laxness

Asia Jollily slept on, her head in the corner, mouth open, chin up, and head back, with one hand under her ear and the other half-open on the coverlet as if she thought in her sleep that someone would come and lay happiness in her palm.

— Halldór Laxness

Can't we make a blusterer ourselves? Asked Jon Hreggviðsson. Can't we scratch that damned sign with the ax-point onto the chopping block and get a beautiful, chubby woman in here tonight, right now-or preferably three? It was no easy matter to create such a sign, because in order to do so the two men required much greater access to the animal kingdom and the forces of nature than conditions in the dungeon permitted. The sign of the Blusterer is inscribed with a raven's gall on the rust-brown inner side of a bitch's skin, and afterward blood is sprinkled over the skin - blood from a black tomcat whose neck has been cut under a full moon by an unspoiled maiden. Where'd you find an unspoiled maiden to cut a black tomcat's neck asked Jon Hreggviðsson?

— Halldór Laxness

For once the crofter was at a rather loss for words, for to him nothing has ever been more completely unintelligible than the reasoning that is bred of tears.

— Halldór Laxness

...freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years' slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year - then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Title. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.

— Halldór Laxness

He disliked tears, he has always disliked tears, had never understood them, and sometimes lost his temper over them; but he felt now that he could not rebuke this flower of his life, this innocent form, water and youth are inseparable companions, and besides its Christmas night. So he merely hinted again that she must have forgotten again that he had promised to build her a house.

— Halldór Laxness

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.

— Halldór Laxness

I know perfectly well that it is impossible, according to arithmetic and scholarly books, to live in a far valley off a handful of ewes and two low yield cows. But we live, I say. You children all lived; your sisters now have sturdy children in far-off districts. And what you are now carrying under your heart will also live and be welcome, little one, despite arithmetic and scholarly books.

— Halldór Laxness

Immoral women do not exist", said the organist. "That this only a superstition. On the other hand there exist women who sleep thirty times with one man, and women who sleep once with thirty men.

— Halldór Laxness

It was pretty miserable wretches that minded at all whether they were wet or dry. He could not understand why such people had been born. "It's nothing but damned eccentricity to want to be dry" he would say. "I've been wet more than half my life and never been a whit the worse for it.

— Halldór Laxness