101 Reykjavik Quotes

Hlynur Hofy lives alone in a three-room apartment and dreams of filling up the other two.

Hlynur My mother works at the Purchasing Institute. My mother is a purchasing institute too.

Hlynur There they are... my mother the lesbian, and my father the boozer. What am I then? The offspring of a lesbian and a boozer? It's like two birds of different species. The lesbian bird and the boozer bird. The boozer is a wetland bird. He's rather heavy... and needs a good run-up to get off the ground. He can fly for a long time and has good stamina. Several weeks may pass by before he gets back on the ground. In between he lies low and goes on the defensive. Especially for the first days after landing. The lesbian. Unlike the boozer... the lesbian is a relative newcomer to Icelandic nature. She is thought to have migrated from Denmark and Britain. Her only contact with the male bird is during conception. In recent years we have witnessed cases of male birds... who are unable to fly at all. The offspring of a boozer and a lesbian is the Hlynur... an unusually slow developer that can't fly... and remains with his mother for the first 30 years. The Hlynur is defensive by nature, but harmless.

Hlynur The Coal Yard flea market. The only serious art museum in Reykjavik. Here you can find Iceland's greatest cultural treasures.

Hlynur What do you mean, it wasn't my baby? I've had nothing but your womb on my brain for half a year... and it wasn't even my baby. How can you be so sure about everything?

Hlynur Is this a Christmas present?

Þröstur No, a Christmas tree.

Hlynur A cactus for a Christmas tree?

Þröstur It'll look great with lights on.

Hlynur Family dinner or a funeral. I'd rather go to a funeral. At least there's one idiot less, then.

Hlynur Life is one week. I drop dead each weekend. I'll be dead after I die... and I was dead before I was born. Life is a break from death.

Hlynur So my mother and I have our fingers in the same pie. Of course it can happen to anyone, accidentally fucking someone in the family. What am I supposed to call Lola now? Stepfather?

Hlynur Reykjavik is like some backwater in Siberia. Swirling snow in the dark, not a bird to be seen. Endless weather that makes you wither biting your cheeks, spraying frost in your eyes. Even the ghosts are bored here.

Hlynur The boozer-loser-blues piss-up pick-up place. Old meat served on every table. Recycled jawbones kissing, pickled bollocks in pussy juice. Everybody's had everybody. It's like the waiting room at the VD clinic. Everybody locked up in the same DNA chain. Abortions floating between the tables. This place is haunted by unborn children. It's like the family reunion of a non-existent family.

Mom Hlynur... there'll be no hash here this Christmas. Just to make that clear. My God, it's about time we quit.

Mom We went to the bonfire and visited your granny. She doesn't go out anymore. We watched the satire program with her... but she didn't get half of it. It went right over her head. I thought it was hilarious. Did you watch it?

Hlynur Yeah, but it wasn't as funny in this part of the country.

Girl What are you pushing and shoving for?

Hlynur Recovered from your chlamydia, have you?

Hófí Lola? Who's that?

Hlynur She's a friend. A sort of friend of my mother's.

Hófí Are you having a night out with a friend of your mother's?

Hlynur You could say that.

Hófí You're totally out of it. What's the matter with you? You're hopeless.

Hófí Hlynur! I'm going to have this baby on the 22nd of August, no matter what!

Hlynur I just hope the baby's not busy on that day.

Hófí You're not funny, Hlynur!

Hlynur I know, this is a serious matter.

Hlynur Why don't they show any porn in the morning? It's easier to get the rest up once your dick's up and about. Maybe you'd wake up earlier, at least before it gets dark just to brighten up your day a little. I wonder what sort of a child I was. Was I funny or just plain idiotic? I've never had much luck with the opposite sex. Maybe I'm just sexually retarded.

Hlynur The worst thing about AIDS as a method of suicide is that it takes so long to die from it.

Þröstur Who's that? You know her?

Hlynur We've been to bed together.

Þröstur What's she like?

Hlynur Want me to give you the condom?

Þröstur Come on, man.

Hlynur The pub, my second home. 35 square meters crammed to bursting point, so crowded and noisy you don't even need to talk or dance. Saturday nights are Friday nights, part II. Everyone is talking about last night, like it's a sequel. Except that everyone who died in part I dies again in part II.

Unemployment Officer And you haven't found anything to do yet?

Hlynur No. Well, yes.

Unemployment Officer Oh?

Hlynur I did my mother's girlfriend.

Unemployment Officer Pardon?

Hlynur I slept with my mother's girlfriend on New Year's Eve. My mother was away in Hvammstangi. It was an accident and it won't happen again... so it's definitely not a job with a future. We were both drunk. What do you think? Do you reckon I should tell her about it?

Unemployment Officer Who?

Hlynur My mother. Should I tell her about it?

Unemployment Officer I don't know. But there was no need to tell me about it.

Hlynur She was almost possessed. Was that what being bisexual is like? Was that the man in her? Compared to her, that trance she was in... I was just a sperm donor. Maybe sex wasn't meant for men.

Hlynur This is great material for a documentary. "The Icelandic Intercourse." Would you call this typical Icelandic intercourse? I mean, really. This is great stuff. "Children of Nature." It could be a series. Mating habits around the globe. How do the Danes do it? Do all blacks have big ones and all Japs little ones? How do Muslim women come? Or do they come at all? The Jewish blow job? Hasn't anyone studied it? This is really great material. Comparative sexology.

Hlynur Christmas Day is the most difficult day of the year... the annual family dinner at my sister Elsa's place.

Hlynur Our little boy, all of ours. Lola will be his mom and my mom will be his dad. And I'll be his brother but his father too. And the son of his dad and of his grandmother and his mother's ex-lover. How will he turn out, himself?

Unknown 1 Why do Marlboro cigarettes have white filters in America... but yellow filters in Europe?

Unknown 2 Why?

Unknown 1 So Keith Richards can tell which continent he's in.

Hlynur My heaviest sentence yet. Dinner at the posh villa. I'll never go to bed with a woman again. Well, I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Snobville measured in square meters of parquet, the kitchen aroma of roasted pork-ette. Batteries buzzing in pacemakered hearts. A golden retriever barking in a basket and the freezers full of life after death. All paid for by the poor public squandering money on sweets.I USED A CONDOM. I should feel calm. Our bedtime games are over for good. I don't like people, at least, not live. Not one on one.