Jo Nesbø

“no one is as they seem, and most of life, apart from honest betrayal, is lies and deceit. And the day we discover we are no different is the day we no longer want to live.”

“A rat is neither good nor evil. It just does what a rat is suppose to do. From Phantom”

“Did you know that darkness has a taste, Grandma?”

“Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”

“They had studied law, information technology and art history as part of their beauty treatment, they had let Norwegian taxpayers finance years at university just so that they could end up as overqualified, stay-at-home playthings and sit here exchanging confidences about how to keep their sugar daddies suitably happy, suitably jealous and suitably on their toes.”

“Hurt? He'll never be hurt–he's made to other people.”

“Incidentally, I really agree with those who say that the capacity to forgive says something about the essential quality of a person. I'm the lowest grade.''I didn't mean to criticize you.''I promise to be better in my next life...”

“Sick is a relative concept. We’re all sick. The question is, what degree of functionality do we have with respect to the rules society sets for desirable behavior? No actions are in themselves symptoms of sickness. You have to look at the context within which these actions are performed.”

“Harry doesn't like people, you see." "I do like people," Harry said. "I just don't like being with them. Particularly when there's a lot of them at the same time.”

“With regard to power, women don’t have the vanity men have. They don’t need to make power visible, they only want the power to give them the other things they want. Security. Food. Enjoyment. Revenge. Peace. They are rational, power-seeking planners, who think beyond the battle, beyond the victory celebrations. And because they have an inborn capacity to see weakness in their victims, they know instinctively when and how to strike. And when to stop. You can’t learn that...”

“You are Bellman, aren’t you? The genius who sent the sauna ape after me?” Harry nodded toward the Finn.”

“Perhaps that was a thing about attractive women: A rejection demanded their respect, made them trust you more.”

“And what’s your unhappiness due to, Harry?The words came out before he had time to think. “Loving someone who loves me.”

“Smoking’s banned in my house. Cigarettes harm your body,” he said, knocking back half of the bottle of beer.”

“No one can leave someone they have good sex with. They can try, but they always go back. We’re simple souls like that, aren’t we?”

“...he went into the sitting room, put on a Duke Ellington record he had bought after seeing Gene Hackman sitting on the overnight bus in The Conversation to the sound of some fragile piano notes that were the loneliest Harry had ever heard.”

“Wilhelm’s smile reminded Harry of his father’s sad, resigned smile, the smile of a man looking backwards because that’s where the things that made him smile were.”