Civilisation's stoves

At length he replied that when all was said and done, the stove flames of world civilisation were probably the very flames which fed the heart's inextinguishable distress, and it is also an open question, old woman, whether the body itself is not better off in an environment colder than that engendered by the flickering flames of civilisation's stoves. True, the world has great superficial beauty when it is at its best, in the murmuring groves of California, for instance, or in the sungilded palm-avenues of the Mediterranean, but the heart's inner glow grows so much the more ashen, the more brilliantly the diamonds of creation shine upon it. But for all that, old woman, I have always loved creation, and always tried to squeeze out of it al that I possibly could.

Halldór Laxness, Independent People (Harvill Press, 2001) p. 353