All my friends who wanted to write had got nowhere trying to write the great European novel. So I deliberately steered clear of that and set out to write something story-led.

All interesting heroes have an Achilles heel.

I've read that it's the smell some carnivores use to find their prey. Imagine the trembling victim trying to hide, but knowing that the smell of its own fear will kill it.

As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.

Doubt is faith's shadow.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

My influence is probably more from American crime writers than any Europeans. And I hardly read any Scandinavian crime before I started writing myself. I wasn't a great crime reader to begin with.

To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside

Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.

Love is a greater mystery than death.

Love surrounds you like steam in the shower. You can't see the individual drops, but you get warm. And wet. And clean.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

When you refuse to settle for less than the best...the best tends to track you down.

If a sight of Christ's outward glory might give a rational assurance of His divinity, why might not an apprehension of He is spiritual glory do so too?

If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it.

I hope that this medal inspires the kids at home to put down guns and knives and pick up a pair of trainers instead.

Redefine you. Oh God, life is so beautiful. Don't let it pass you by. Don't miss it. Don't miss it.

Teach not with your words, but with your actions; not with discussion but with demonstration. For it is what you do that your children will emulate, and how you are that they will become.

I like walking in the pool. That isn't what makes me feel spiritual. But alive.

Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.

Yes the Jews do many foul things and they distort our foreign policy but not everything that goes bad can be blamed on the Jews.