"Really," said the poet, without enthusiasm. - Halldór Laxness

If you’re fond of someone, you don’t care even if he doesn’t live in a palace and even if all the banks where he has deposits and all the worldcities where he is famous don’t exist.

How is one to have any respect for the world where nothing else matters except who can lie the most plausibly and steal the most?

When Icelanders were worthy of the name, it was considered an accepted duty to avenge with the sword the sort of crime you have committed against my family. It's a bitter thing to be living at a time when one may not challenge to single combat the man who has disgraced one's family, and carve a blood-eagle on his back!