Iceland Quotes

Helga Sigrid was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and still had an accent right out of Wagner. She was almost as tall as he was, and as Nordic as it was possible to get without disappearing altogether whenever the sun came out. ~ Carsten Stroud

I've walked a lot in the mountains in Iceland. And as you come to a new valley, as you come to a new landscape, you have a certain view. If you stand still, the landscape doesn't necessarily tell you how big it is. It doesn't really tell you what you're looking at. The moment you start to move the mountain starts to move. ~ Olafur Eliasson

In late March 2016, at a very bad Thai restaurant in the little town of Selfoss, Iceland, I and my daughters Alissa and Hannah sat with my girlfriend, Jennifer, and her daughters Sadie and Hannah (yes, two Hannahs) as Jennifer and I pressed forward with the difficult task of family blending. Jennifer's Hannah was talking about Black Lives Matter and the injustices that befall African Americans every day.

'Anti-Semitism basically doesn't exist in the United States,' she asserted.

I shocked myself with my response. I recoiled at her words and argued passionately that Jews must never think that anti-Semitism has been eradicated. Vigilance, I preached. The Jew can never be at peace.

I sounded like my grandmother. ~ Jonathan Weisman

Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on [E]arth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality. Insofar as there is a crime problem in Western Europe, it is largely the product of immigration. Seventy percent of the inmates of France's jails, for instance, are Muslim. The Muslims of Western Europe are generally not atheists. Conversely, the fifty nations now ranked lowest in terms of the United Nations' [H]uman [D]evelopment [I]ndex are unwaveringly religious.
Other analyses paint the same picture: the United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious adherence; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. ~ Sam Harris

I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing 'Burial Rites,' I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry. ~ Hannah Kent

The winters are too long, and there's only one airline, so it's difficult to escape when you feel frustrated or claustrophobic. The audience for our films isn't very large, so it's difficult to support an industry. But, Iceland is beautiful. Sometimes it's hard to imagine living anywhere else. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

Remember, the Arctic didn't have any ice. And the Northwest Passage was wide open. They were raising grapes in Scotland for God sakes, had a huge winery. Iceland was a farming community. As some of the glaciers retreated they found villages that were covered with ice. ~ Don Young

If conditions along the eastern coast are right, you can actually see Iceland floating on the distant horizon. ~ Damjan Koncnik

In Iceland, the weather is the biggest character you deal with every day. There's nothing more relevant in your life than what kind of weather it is. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

There is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false step, never shies. If there is a river or fjord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious, and gain the opposite bank. ~ Jules Verne

Perhaps it is not the belief of God that makes us happier but belief in something, anything. How else to explain the fact that the happiest countries in the world--Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands--are hardly religious at all? ~ Eric Weiner

Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly, Peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky, From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan, I really think the greatest fool is man. ~ Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

I went to Iceland in 1861 and went over nearly every bit of the ground made famous by the adventures of Grettir. ~ Sabine Baring-Gould

We commend President Obama and his administration for taking this strong action against Iceland and its barbaric whaling industry ... and we urge the President to take similar action against Japan and Norway as well! ~ Hayden Panettiere

I can imagine Iceland becoming a good place to run a controversial Web site. But ... Iceland may find itself forced to defend controversial speech. ~ Ethan Zuckerman

In the bare room under the old library on the hill in the town at the tip of the small peninsula on the cold island so far from everything else, I lived among strangers and birds. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Memories of her parents would sneak up on her and hit her from behind at odd moments, sometimes for the most inane of reasons. One of her friends in Iceland, a theology student named Sigridur, had called them grief tackles, ~ Sarah Wendell

Few people take an interest in Iceland, but in those few the interest is passionate. ~ W. H. Auden

One of the things I love about working with my brother is that there's a commitment there - an unwavering commitment. From our basement in Illinois when I was three years old to Iceland on a frozen glacier with Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon in spacesuits - there's a commitment to the pure spectacle, the pure cinema of it. ~ Jonathan Nolan

When it comes to whaling, Iceland is an international outlaw. Years of global negotiations and declarations have failed utterly to end its illegal slaughter of whales. It's time to send Iceland a message it can't ignore: trade sanctions. ~ Pierce Brosnan

We kept saying, 'These banks are out of business.' But the government kept saving the banks," he said. "And right in the midst of this Iceland went broke. ~ Michael Lewis

Bhutan all but bases its identity upon its loneliness, and its refusal to b assimilated into India, or Tibet, or Nepal. Vietnam, at present, is a pretty girl with her face pressed up against the window of the dance hall, waiting to be invited in; Iceland is the mystic poet in the corner, with her mind on other things. Argentina longs to be part of the world it left and, in its absence, re-creates the place it feels should be its home; Paraguay simply slams the door and puts up a Do Not Disturb sign. Loneliness and solitude, remoteness and seclusion, are many worlds apart. ~ Pico Iyer

I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland. ~ Hannah Kent

The Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes - Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin. ~ James Lovelock

Icy glares from vampires are far icier than icy glares from people and when the vampire giving you an icy glare is originally from Iceland, you're confronted with the archetypal origin of the term, and you shouldn't be surprised if your core body temperature drops a few degrees. ~ Kevin Hearne

I was 13 when I had my first bout of insomnia. My family was in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the summer, and day never really became night. ~ Siri Hustvedt

The fact that a cloud from a minor volcanic eruption in Iceland - a small disturbance in the complex mechanism of life on the Earth - can bring to a standstill the aerial traffic over an entire continent is a reminder of how, with all its power to transform nature, humankind remains just another species on the planet Earth. ~ Slavoj Zizek

I love hiking in Iceland most, there are lots of brilliant paths. ~ Bjork

During World War II, Iceland was a poor country with a total population of about 120,000 people. In contrast, the occupying U.S. force consisted of roughly 40,000 men - which meant that U.S. soldiers outnumbered adult Icelandic men - at least during the height of the occupation. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

You and Raquel should lead the attack against the IPCA facility. Where is it? Iceland? Siberia?"
"Illinoise," Raquel answered. "Normal, Illinoise, a couple of hours outside Chicago."
I snorted. "Finally, IPCA gets a sense of humor. ~ Kiersten White

There's a reason why Jules Verne chose the place where the glacier was, where we start to descend into the center of the earth. That area specifically has magical powers and people come to this place from all over the world. I actually think that's true of all Iceland. I think it's so special, apart from the water and air being so clean. ~ Anita Briem

I don't think there's any country that has equal pay, not even Sweden or Iceland. ~ Gloria Steinem

The communities and countries best at using energy to optimize a microclimate for human life are also the ones whose people have the longest average lifespans. Canada, Sweden, and Iceland - places with inhospitable winter weather - are frontrunners in sustaining human health and life. ~ Chris Hadfield

If ever I hear again of any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum, I shall ask for your transference to a Sub-Centre–preferably to Iceland. Good morning. ~ Aldous Huxley

Erik the Red left Norway for frontier Iceland 'on account of some killings' and after a while he had to leave Iceland on account of some more killings; he needed a fresh start after his first fresh start. ~ Michael Pye

Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible. ~ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

The Earth is inconceivably old. But Iceland is barely a child. ~ Betsy Tobin

Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called hidden people - or, to put it more plainly, elves - in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free, but, as he put it, we couldn't as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people. ~ Michael Lewis

I've been to the Himalayas a half a dozen times and I love it. I'm just kind of tired of going literally twelve time zones around the world. I would rather go six time zones and get to Iceland or whatever it is. ~ James Balog

ONE GROUP OF Vikings remained in Iceland, becoming the Icelanders. A second group remained in the Faroe Islands. The main body of Vikings were given lands in the Seine basin in exchange for protecting Paris. They settled into northern France and within a century were speaking a dialect of French and became known as the Normans. Soon the Vikings had vanished. ~ Mark Kurlansky

Neither mine nor other people's prospects seem particularly pleasing just at the moment, and I have fantasies of going to Iceland, never to return. As it is, I tell myself not to remember the past, not to hope or fear for the future, and not to think in the present, a comprehensive program that will undoubtedly have very little success. ~ Edward Gorey

Public spending on infrastructure has fallen to its lowest level since 1947. And the U.S., which used to have the finest infrastructure in the world, is now ranked 16th according to the World Economic Forum, behind Iceland, Spain, Portugal and the United Arab Emirates. ~ Ray LaHood

The national curriculum for the Swedish preschool is twenty pages long and goes on at length about things like fostering respect for one another, human rights, and democratic values, as well as a lifelong desire to learn. The document's word choices are a pretty good clue to what Swedish society wants and expects from toddlers and preschoolers. The curriculum features the word "play" thirteen times, "language" twelve times, "nature" six times, and "math" five times. But there is not a single mention of "literacy" or "writing." Instead, two of the most frequently used words are "learning" (with forty-eight appearances) and "development" (forty-seven).

The other Scandinavian countries have similar early childhood education traditions. In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn't start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because "their monolithic culture values reading. ~ Linda Åkeson McGurk

This was different. It had synths droning and sending saltwater waves under my feet. It had drumbeats bursting like fireworks, rumbling the furniture out of place, and then a crazy, irregular, disharmonious, spiral crescendo of pure electric noise, like a typhoon dragging our bodies into it. It featured brass orchestras and choirs of mermaids and a piano in Iceland, all of them right there, visible, touchable, in Axton House. It shook us, fucked us, suspended us far above the reach of Help bouncing on his hind legs. It spoke of magenta sunsets and plastic patio chairs growing moss under summer storms rolling on caterpillar tracks. It sprinkled a bokeh of car lights rushing through night highways and slapped our faces like the wind at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. It pictured Niamh playing guitar, washed up naked on a beach in Fiji. ~ Edgar Cantero

I mean, Iceland is Iceland. It can't do damage to anybody unless you're Icelandic. But the United States can drag down the entire western economy. And I think what we are seeing is simply a reflection of reality. This is not, I'm sorry, but this is not a AAA nation. ~ Mark Steyn

In 2014, the Earth's gravity is weakest in southern India (blue spot) and strongest in Iceland and Indonesia (red spots). ~ Kip S. Thorne

We shot 'Oblivion' in Iceland; that was amazing. It's so, so beautiful. They didn't have any Waldorf Hotels there, though; we stayed in the middle of nowhere! ~ Olga Kurylenko

When I was young I had this blonde haircut that was shaved on one side with a rat tail and tram lines in it, but I don't really regret that. It was really elaborate but I was 12 and it looked cool. It was like what people in Iceland do. ~ Kemp Muhl

There is a glacier in Iceland, Solheimar, which has retreated a great deal, and every time I go back there and see what's not there any more, it does something to the heart. It makes you realise it's possible for a gigantic natural element to just disappear. ~ James Balog

I used to sail a lot in all kinds of weather, competing on small sailboats in the ocean. And I travel a lot in Iceland on horses every summer, through the wild areas where there's no inhabitants and there are volcanoes. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

Where will that be?' 'Either Greenland or Iceland.' 'How shall we know which is which?' 'If it's green, it'll be Iceland. If it's icy it'll be Greenland. ~ Ernest Schofield

Are you saying that you people knew about these amorophobots all the time?"
"Of course we did. They attacked us in Iceland. Remember?"
"No. I was unconscious. ~ Eoin Colfer

Letting the banks go bust instead of perpetually bailing them out is the right way to go.Iceland Did It Right; All others are doing it wrong. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

Hodges has read there are wells in Iceland so deep you can drop a stone down them and never hear the splash. He thinks some human souls are like that. ~ Stephen King

I applied for funding to embark on an overseas field trip in Iceland, and spent six weeks there happily holed up in the national archives, museums and libraries, sifting through ministerial and parish records, censuses, maps, microfilm, logs, and local histories. ~ Hannah Kent

At least God never showed his face in Iceland. Olie tells me it wasn't even created by him. No wonder it's the most peaceful country in the world. ~ Hallgrimur Helgason

Most people in Iceland are blonde and blue-eyed. I was nicknamed 'China girl' in school 'cos they thought I looked Asian. ~ Bjork

The Pleiades and northern lights are still above the mountain. The mountain is in the east, and on its slopes there are reindeer. Reindeer always remind me of trees that have taken to moving. They remind me even more of trees than people do. In the distant past, reindeer were trees as people were, but they haven't come such a long way from their origins, and the branches can be seen although they no longer bear leaves.
I have my bedtime book in my hand and my pocket light and walk toward the mountain over the edges of the moorland in rubber boots. The book is a relative of mine, I feel; it is made out of trees and human thought, and thus the relationship becomes twofold. These are ancient poems that I am taking to the mountains and the reindeer. ~ Gyrdir Eliasson

Most people in Iceland are either referred to as the son or daughter of their father. For example, a woman with a father named John is Johnsdaughter, or in Icelandic Jonsdottir. A man with a father named John is Johnsson, or Jonsson in Icelandic. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

When I was a punk teenager, I rebelled because lots of people in Iceland think that foreigners are evil and that if you don't wear woolen hats and eat sheep, you're betraying your heritage. ~ Bjork

After a few days [in Iceland] I tried to take a photograph. But with my attempt to distinguish the first shot, the place disappeared on me ... I hadn't been in Iceland long enough to simply be there. ~ Roni Horn

I want to work with directors who can tell intimate stories in a way that feels universal and with a big enough scope and depth to travel outside of Iceland. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

No, my favorite scene was Brienne finding Arya and The Hound. I thought that the writing and the dialogue and the confusion that spirals into the fight was such a cool scene. I knew I was gonna film it in Iceland and I did a lot of - I really scouted and climbed around Iceland to find those locations and I just couldn't wait to do that. ~ Alex Graves

In 2010, Iceland - with a lesbian prime minister and a parliament that is 50 percent female - became the first country in the world to outlaw strip clubs for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. I ~ Caitlin Moran

Now if I lived in my land, which I do, if I lived in Iceland, if I lived in Greensland I'd still have Chinese children, but out of my ears my little grey baby hears. ~ Devendra Banhart

DEAR DI­ARY
You are greater than the Bible
And the Con­fer­ence of the Birds
And the Up­an­ishads
All put to­geth­er
You are more se­vere
Than the Scrip­tures
And Ham­mura­bi's Code
More dan­ger­ous than Luther's pa­per
Nailed to the Cathe­dral door
You are sweet­er
Than the Song of Songs
Might­ier by far
Than the Epic of Gil­gamesh
And braver
Than the Sagas of Ice­land
I bow my head in grat­itude
To the ones who give their lives
To keep the se­cret
The dai­ly se­cret
Un­der lock and key
Dear Di­ary
I mean no dis­re­spect
But you are more sub­lime
Than any Sa­cred Text
Some­times just a list
Of my events
Is holi­er than the Bill of Rights
And more in­tense ~ Leonard Cohen

We're in His hands." Abby muttered the words she and Phil had said before they left for Iceland. "May God protect us all. He always does." Her breath caught, and she turned to face the horizon with a brimming heart. "He always has. ~ C.R. Hedgcock

Albanian dogs go "ham ham." In Catalan, dogs go "bup bup." The Chinese dogs say "wang wang," the Greek dogs go "gav gav," the Slovenians "hov hov," and the Ukrainians "haf haf." In Iceland, it's "voff," in Indonesia, it's "gong gong," and in Italian, it's "bau bau. ~ John Lloyd

Travelling with work. I went to Iceland with GMTV last year and I went to Lapland twice with Classic Gold. I also went to America with Keith Chegwin, which must have been a nightmare for the crew, as we're both hyperactive. ~ Tony Blackburn

On average, odd years have been the best for me.

I'm at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version
of someone I already know.

Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I've never experienced.

The sky is molting. I don't know
if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring
itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering.

I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland.

Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas
as possible as unsexed fruit.

I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders
the connection between the sunset and pollution.

On Venus you and I are not even a year old.

Then there were two skies.
The one we fly through and the one
we bury ourselves in.

I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills
the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things.

I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories.
Such things.

In the story we were together every time.

On his wedding day, the stone in his chest
not fully melted but enough.

Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me. ~ Jennifer K. Sweeney

To put it slightly differently, small sovereign nations, like Iceland, have choices to make within the broader constraints created for them by nature and by the rest of humanity. However limited these choices might be, Iceland's body politic retains absolute authority to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they have reached within the nation's exogenous constraints, and to strike down every piece of legislation that it has decided upon in the past. (...) In this sense, small, powerless Iceland continues to enjoy full sovereignty while the comparatively omnipotent European Union has been stripped of all forms of sovereignty. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

Ridley Scott was part of the production team on 'The Good Wife.' I auditioned on my iPhone, and it moved very quickly after that, as they thought I was right for the role, and pretty soon I was filming in Iceland for two months. ~ Mike Colter

I think my sweet spot is to make personal films on not-too-big budgets and also make other people's films, bringing productions to Iceland, upping the business here. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

Iceland is fascinating; really an amazing place to visit, and great for a film to go there. ~ Russell Crowe

After 'Rock Star,' I was definitely doing more high profile gigs. I was playing in Iceland. I was playing in Canada. ~ Josh Logan

A smaller axis of progressives do have intuitive and sometimes explicit understandings that the times are-a-changin'. These strata are concentrated around progressive parties such as the Pirate Party (started in Sweden, but had the most success in Germany and lately in Iceland), the Greens, the Feminist Initiative (also Sweden) and The Alternative (a Danish party, by far the most insightful and progressive one, discussed in chapter 5) Such parties are indicative of new progressive strata of the population, representing the groups we can call the triple-H: hipsters, hackers and hippies. ~ Hanzi Freinacht

You can still talk with her," Iceland said. "It will take time. Everything you need to know is inside you, the same as it's inside her. You'll figure out how to talk to each other. You'll have to figure out how to listen, to understand."

"I'm listening," I said. "I will. ~ Peter Rock

The first men to set foot on the moon were sent to Iceland for acclimation - that's how unlike to anything else the Icelandic landscape is. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

In elections in Iceland, I have always been an abstainer. It seems like politics is such a small bundle of self-important people, who don't have much to do with things I'm interested in. ~ Bjork

To reach Greenland, turn left at the middle of Norway, keep so far north of Shetland that you can only see it if the visibility is very good, and far enough south of the Faroes that the sea appears half way up the mountain slopes. As for Iceland, stay so far to the south that you only see its flocks of birds and whales. So, ROUGHLY PARAPHRASED, run the navigational directions in an Icelandic manual of the Middle Ages, ~ Peter Heather

There are no trees in Iceland," - "We have a joke, do you know it?"
She took a breath, then said, "What do you do if you get lost in a forest in Iceland?"
I shook my head. "I dunno."
"Stand up. ~ Elizabeth Hand

Having grown up in Iceland and Los Angeles, gone to school in Europe and America, and lived and worked in London and New York, my insatiable appetite for travel has informed many of my life decisions. ~ Aslaug Magnusdottir

I was just asking Chad [Myers], how can you get a volcano in Iceland? Isn't it too- when you think of a volcano, you think of Hawaii and long words like that. You don't think of Iceland.You think it's too cold to have a volcano there. ~ Rick Sanchez

Pastor Jón: God has the virtue that one can locate Him anywhere at all, in anything at all.

Embi: In a nail, for instance?

Pastor Jón, verbatim: In school debates the question was sometimes put whether God was not incapable of creating a stone so heavy that He couldn't lift it. Often I think the Almighty is like a snow bunting abandoned in all weathers. Such a bird is about the weight of a postage stamp. Yet he does not blow away when he stands in the open in a tempest. Have you ever seen the skull of a snow bunting? He wields this fragile head against the gale, with his beak to the ground, wings folded close to his sides and his tail pointing upwards; and the wind can get no hold on him, and cleaves. Even in the fiercest squalls the bird does not budge. He is becalmed. Not a single feather stirs.

Embi: How do you know the bird is the Almighty, and not the wind?

Pastor Jón: Because the winter storm is the most powerful force in Iceland, and the snow bunting is the feeblest of all God's conceptions. ~ Halldor Laxness

Yet the ailment is virtually nonexistent in Iceland. There is a higher prevalence of the disorder in the northeastern United States than in Iceland. Perplexed by the results, psychologists theorize that over the centuries Icelanders developed a genetic immunity to the disease. Those who got SAD died out, taking their gene pool with them. Survival of the felicitous. ~ Eric Weiner

In Reykjavik, Iceland, where I was born, you are in the middle of nature surrounded by mountains and ocean. But you are still in a capital in Europe. So I have never understood why I have to choose between nature or urban. ~ Bjork

Although the mortality rate was erratic, ranging from one fifth in some places to nine tenths or almost total elimination in others, the overall estimate of modern demographers has settled - for the area extending from India to Iceland - around the same figure expressed in Froissart's casual words: "a third of the world died. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Sherry is clearly from Iceland because it is not that warm out, ~ Carol Maloney Scott

It was not hard to believe a beautiful woman capable of murder, Margret thought.As it says in the sagas, Opt er flago i fogru skinni. A witch often has fair skin. ~ Hannah Kent

When I'm in a place like Iceland, I allow myself to take a little more time to divert off onto other paths creatively for a while and see what comes to me. ~ Damien Rice

The thing about Iceland is that we are trapped there anyway, all of us. We have been trapped there for thousands of years. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

My sister and I visited Iceland in 2001, and I incorporated it into 'Pretty Little Liars.' ~ Sara Shepard

Throughout the history of Iceland, men have been lost at sea; every family in Iceland is connected to that kind of story. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

The child raised for his station, never leaving it, could not be exposed to the disadvantages of another. But given the mobility of human things, given the unsettled and restless spirit of this age which upsets everything in each generation, can one conceive of a method more senseless than raising a child as though he never had to leave his room, as though he were going to be constantly surrounded by his servants? If the unfortunate makes a single step on the earth, if he goes down a single degree, he is lost. This is not teaching him to bear suffering; it is training him to feel it. One thinks only of preserving one's child. That is not enough. One ought to teach him to preserve himself as a man. to bear the blows of fate, to brave opulence and poverty, to live, if he has to. in freezing Iceland or on Malta's burning rocks. You may very well take precautions against his dying. He will nevertheless have to die. And though his death were not the product of your efforts, still these efforts would be ill conceived. It is less a question of keeping him from dying than of making him live. To live is not to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Iceland sets a world-record. The United Nations asked people from all over the world a series of questions. Iceland stuck out on one thing. When we were asked what do we believe, 90% said, 'ourselves'. I think I'm in that group. If I get into trouble, there's no God or Allah to sort me out. I have to do it myself. ~ Bjork

Did you know there's probably more golf played in Iceland than most places in the world? They play 24 hours a day in the summertime and the northern part is warmer than the southern part. ~ Jack Nicklaus

Iceland is 50 percent Celtic blood, from the females that they stole from us, which is why our country has only got dogs left. It was a joke! I'll never be let back in Scotland again! ~ Gerard Butler

The original settlers in Iceland were the nobles of Norway who left their native land to avoid the tyranny of Harold Fairhair, who tried to crush their power so as to make himself a despotic king in the land. ~ Sabine Baring-Gould

Icelanders are grateful to meet foreigners who have heard of their country. And even more grateful to hear someone say it deserves better. ~ Halldor Laxness