Writing in English made me become a foreigner in my own country. It helped me create the necessary distance to my homeland. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
In the Nordic countries, there are hardly any societal problems, but we writers are bloodthirsty people like anyone else, so we have to quench this thirst with literature. If you live in a mafia state with lots of violence on the streets, you tend to write beautiful poetry. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
As a writer, you have to be mean and vicious. Use the pen as your gun. Sometimes the people you write about get hurt. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
Nabokov can be almost too delicate at times, but in ‘Lolita,’ he puts his aristocratic sensitivity to use in such a dark tale that it creates this great tension between the story being told and the style that it’s written in. And it’s just amazing that one of the best novels in English was written by a Russian. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
I’m the kind of writer who thinks style is just as important as the story being told. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
Like many writers, I’m usually more interested in reading about authors than their actual works. We’re more curious to know how they were written than what they are like to read. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
We have to save ourselves from ourselves. We have to minimize the effect our own politicians can have on our society. We have to get some rules from the outside. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
Thanks to the Jolabokaflod, books still matter in Iceland; they get read and talked about. Excitement fills the air. Every reading is crowded; every print run is sold. Hallgrimur Helgason Read Quote
