" This land will kill you, if it can. We Icelanders are forged of different metal from the soft foreigners – even the Barbary pirates did not stay long. Have you ever known a Danish trader to winter here from choice?’
I shrugged. How did this concern me, or the people’s morbid curiosity?
‘We seem strong, Jón, all of us, but we are like grass – we bend so the wind will not break us. You are like the sea: you surge forward again and again. See yourself now. Your parents are dead, your croft is falling apart and your boat is riddled with holes, yet you don’t stop.’
I spread my hands. ‘I don’t want to die.’
‘You want to live. You want a better life than the one you were given. "

― Caroline Lea , The Glass Woman