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 creake… - Halldór Laxness

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

Of all the creatures that man kills for his amusement there is only one that he kills out of hatred—other men. Man hates nothing as much as himself. That is why war is called the leprosy of the human soul.

Jón Hreggviðsson said that he himself never read except when he was forced to do so, though he had learned from his mother all the necessary sagas, ballads, and old genealogies, and he claimed to be descended from Haraldur Hilditönn, the Danish king, on his father's side. He said that he would never forget such excellent ancients as Gunnar of Hlíðarendi, King Pontus, and Örvar-Oddur, who were twelve ells high and could have lived to be three hundred years old if they hadn't run into any trouble, and that if he had such a book he would send it immediately for free to the king and his counts, to prove to them that there had indeed once been real men in Iceland.