Best Icelandic Quotes

#1. 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

#2. Icelandic people are inbred. And they have a sense of themselves as genetically special, and a history of risk-taking because they make their living on the high seas fishing. Assets generally rose in value during this period, and so it looked like they actually knew what they were doing.

Michael Lewis

#3. I read a bit of the Icelandic sagas. They're fascinating in that they are completely ordinary. The farmer will go off into the hills and fight a troll, and then go back and do ordinary things. It's an odd mix of fantasy and reality.

Jonathan Stroud

#4. Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don't have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people. We don't even have an army. So it's sort of like an all-around good, innocent place.

Bjork

#5. Since the Icelandic volcano obviously needs a virgin sacrifice and the Catholic Church obviously needs new leadership the Pope must volunteer to jump in the volcano. Pontiff, don't think of it as endorsing paganism, think of it as supersizing Ash Wednesday.

Bill Maher

#6. You must sit down to speak this language,
It is so heavy you can't be polite or chatter in it.
For once you have begun a sentence, the whole course of your life is laid out before you"
-quoted in "The Geography of Bliss

Bill Holm

#7. 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

#8. The most spectacular anti-lava effort in history occurred on the Icelandic island of Heimaey in 1973.

Brendan I. Koerner

#9. I'm Icelandic, from this small country where there was very limited access to fashion when I was growing up, and so, for me, it's really important to have a product that's relevant for this global customer.

Aslaug Magnusdottir

#10. Many autistic people have this ability to learn weird foreign languages, and I think I've heard of autistic Americans who have been obsessed [with] Icelandic and learned it and speak it fluently, and I've seen it done in interviews on television.

Jon Gnarr

#11. I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum.

Bobby Fischer

#12. the Icelandic banks are the only financial institutions in the world that have gone bankrupt with an A rating.

Thor Bjorgolfsson

#13. I was worst to the one I loved best.

Hannah Kent

#14. Icelandic peoples were the ones who memorized sagas ... We were the first rappers of Europe.

Bjork

#15. I consider myself more a European director who is from Iceland than an Icelandic director.

Baltasar Kormakur

#16. The Icesave matter is complex and it is understandable that the issue has been oversimplified by many. Unfortunately some of the basic facts of the matter have been unilaterally interpreted, and sometimes distorted, giving rise to unjustified criticism of the conduct of the Icelandic authorities.

Johanna Siguroardottir

#17. I feel like the people from Iceland have a different relationship with their country than other places. Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don't have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people.

Bjork

#18. It's very difficult to say anything in Icelandic. I can say "takk," which means "thank you." That's about all I learned.

Kit Harington

#19. The Germans made just about every bad investment you could have made. They invested in Icelandic banks. They invested in Greek government bonds. They were heavy into Irish banks, big into Irish banks, and they bought U.S. subprime mortgage bonds.

Michael Lewis

#20. When You Seek to Stay in Your Natural Flow of Vitality That is When Your Magical Moments Appear

Runa Magnus

#21. 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.

Halldor Laxness

#22. 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

#23. 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

#24. I had been obsessed with the Arthurian legends all my life, and I knew that that would work its way into any trilogy I wrote. I was fascinated by the Eddas, the Norse and Icelandic legends, Odin on the world tree.

Guy Gavriel Kay

#25. One of the great advantages of the study of old Norse or Icelandic literature is the insight given by it into the origin of world-wide superstitions. Norse tradition is transparent as glacier ice, and its origin is as unmistakable.

Sabine Baring-Gould

#26. The thing I need most in this world is a long, hot shower, but what I get instead is a trickle of warm water followed by a blast of Icelandic cold

Jennifer Niven

#27. We have made a conscious effort to blend in with U.S. society and have done our best to develop good English skills. Today, both Johanna and I communicate in English with ease, and our children speak English at native fluency levels, but we continue to speak Icelandic at home.

Gudjon Bergmann

#28. We thought it was drops
of dew and kissed
cold tears from the crossgrass.

Jonas Hallgrimsson

#29. I don't think that any Icelandic filmmaker feels like he belongs to Icelandic filmmaking, because nobody really knows what it is.

Dagur Kari

#30. They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers.

Michael Lewis

#31. It was a great joy for me to develop a strong female character in the spirit of an Icelandic woman. Icelandic women tend to be very strong and very independent, and I think that came in very handy.

Anita Briem

#32. 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