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.

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.

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.

As I say, we Norwegians love our woolens, and you can buy some beautiful knitwear in Oslo. They might cost you a bit - but they will last.

Really, what is the law when it stands in the way of what the government wants to do?

We don't get to choose what or whom we love, I want to say. We just don't get to choose.

The corruption of religious leaders, who were expected to be the source of spiritual force and regeneration, is the last step in the of decay of a community.

That's the thing about us lawyers - if at all possible, we will consume each other.

Beauty like hers is genius.

I've never been one to look too far ahead since I came back into the England side and I'm not going to change that view.

I just say that at any weight you should love your life.

I've found that taking shortcuts will get you to the place you don't want to be much quicker than they get u to the place u want to be.

Diversity, to the left, means minorities get even with, minorities triumph, minorities get payback. That's what diversity means.

I was in my tighty-whities and I never woke up, and I ran over a mile.