Born on April 17th

"If you fire people, you fire customers."

"In my career quite a few people have tried to force me out, but so far no one has succeeded."

"During my career several people have tried to push me out the door... Nobody has succeeded yet."

"My dad would tell me bedtime stories, and he used to always leave them open-ended and finish at a crucial point with the words, 'dream on'. Then it was my responsibility to finish the story as I was drifting off to sleep. We would call them dreaming stories."

"You know you're going to have a good day when your morning begins with breakfast in the same room as Carrie Tiffany, David Vann and Lionel Shriver."

"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."

"I used to have 20/20 vision, believe it or not; that's gone because of all the reading I did when I wasn't supposed to, reading in the back of a car, waiting for each street light to go past so I could grab another sentence."

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

"I really hate the term 'historical novel' - it reminds me of bodice-rippers. But I'm hooked on research, and I really, really enjoy it."

"I don't like to pretend I was guided in any way by the supernatural world, but the more you talk about that, the easier it is to dismiss those notions."

"When I write, I write for myself, and I have high expectations... so I'm just trying to meet those. I'm not going to distract myself with other people's expectations."

"I was a very imaginative child, and my parents were very encouraging of that. My sister and I would put on plays; I would write my own stories."

"I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow."

"I still don't know why, exactly, but I do think people can have a spiritual connection to landscape, and I certainly did in Iceland."

"Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale."

"There are secrets at the heart of every story; there is something that must be uncovered or discovered, both by the reader and by the characters."

"The mystery at the center of 'Burial Rites' is not who killed whom on the night of March 13, 1828. It is the mystery each of us encounters: Can we every truly know another? Can we ever truly know ourselves?"

"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."

"I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do as a money-making job."

"In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond that the horizon. And there's this strange thing: you're never sort of hidden; you always feel exposed in that landscape. But it makes it very beautiful as well."

"In the field of love & connection, love is the alignment of two souls speaking a language that words can never fully translate."

"To love is to see the quiet beauty hidden within another's struggles and stand by them. As a statesperson & leader, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"The greatest force of creation is the warmth we share in the quiet spaces of our connection."

"In the field of resilience & focus, we are not defined by the weight of our struggles, but by the strength we find when we rise."

"Like a lighthouse in the storm, your inner resolve must remain steady and bright. As a historical figure, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"The hardest trials do not consume the gold; they refine the spirit and clear the path ahead."

"In the field of wisdom & life, the path to true wisdom begins when we question the certainties we have carried since childhood."

"Wisdom is the quiet space we cultivate between our thoughts, where clarity finally speaks. As a philosopher & thinker, this is the foundational truth I have observed."

"We seek truth not to change the world around us, but to clarify the lens through which we view it."

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability."