Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

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.

Now is your time. Go for it! It is never too late, or too early, to begin living the adventures of which you have always dreamed.

If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.

The pure modernist is merely a snob

Time falls on us, like rain, it falls like rain until we drown in it, and sometimes, it's like the drains overflow, and time just - pools up, it seeps, it gathers in the corners.

Physics is about questioning, studying, probing nature. You probe, and, if you're lucky, you get strange clues.

What is impossible to God? Not that which is difficult to His power, but that which is contrary to His nature.

every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . .

First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.

Surround yourself with great people; delegate authority; get out of the way

Most people, including myself, keep repeating the same mistakes.