Norse Mythology Quotes
"It’s as hard to have a favorite sequence of myths as it is to have a favorite style of cooking."
"The Norse myths are the myths of a chilly place, with long, long winter nights and endless summer days."
"Sometimes details in the stories contradict each other. But I hope that they paint a picture of a world and a time."
"If I had to declare a favorite, it would probably be for the Norse myths."
"The Norse gods came with their own doomsday: Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, the end of it all."
"Ragnarok made the Norse world linger for me, seem strangely present and current."
"Loki drinks too much, and he cannot guard his words or his thoughts or his deeds when he drinks."
"The gods of Asgard came from Germany, spread into Scandinavia, and then out into the parts of the world dominated by the Vikings."
"We can see the traces of older myths and older religions in the war and the stories of the truce between the gods of the Vanir and the Aesir."
"History and religion and myth combine, and we wonder and we imagine and we guess, like detectives reconstructing the details of a long-forgotten crime."
"Odin knows many secrets. He gave an eye for wisdom."
"I did not dare go back to the tellers of Norse myth whose work I had loved."
"Thor, Odin’s son, is the thunderer. He is straightforward where his father Odin is cunning."
"Loki is very handsome. He is plausible, convincing, likable, and far and away the most wily, subtle, and shrewd of all the inhabitants of Asgard."
"If you fall bravely in war the Valkyries, beautiful battle-maidens who collect the souls of the noble dead, will take you and bring you to the hall known as Valhalla."
"The world is a flat disk, and the sea encircles the perimeter."
"The last root of the world-tree goes to a spring in the home of the gods, to Asgard, where the Aesir make their home."
"There are other norns, not just those three. Giant norns and elf norns, dwarf norns and Vanir norns, good norns and bad, and what your fate will be is decided by them."
"Odin put on his long cloak and his hat, and in the guise of a wanderer he traveled through the land of the giants, risking his life to get to Mimir, to seek wisdom."
"The gods cannot climb the world-tree. They travel between the worlds using Bifrost, the rainbow bridge."
"All mistakes, conclusions jumped to, and odd opinions in this volume are mine and mine alone, and I would not wish anyone else blamed for them."
"That’s the joy of myths. The fun comes in telling them yourself—something I warmly encourage you to do."
"Had Ragnarok happened yet? Was it still to happen? I did not know then. I am not certain now."
"We are hungry," said Hoenir. "Can you help us cook our dinner?"
"I want," said the eagle, "Idunn. And I want her apples. The apples of immortality."
"I’ll get the apples for you," said Loki. "I swear it. Just let me down."
"I am a goddess of the Aesir," she told him. "Where I am, the apples also are."
"You are not saying anything. I think," said the eagle, "I will drag you over some more rocks and mountaintops."
"Bring Idunn back to Asgard. And the apples of immortality."
"I’ll do it. I’ll need Freya’s falcon-feather cloak, though."
"I wore it well," said Loki. "Save your breath, and you can use your strength in making a pile of wood shavings beyond the walls of Asgard."
"You killed him. His death fills my life with tears and misery. I have no joy in my life. I am here for vengeance, or for compensation."
"Those orbs," said Odin to Skadi, "those were your father’s eyes."