We must remember that politics is more than a power game. The core of politics in my view is to serve our citizens, to serve our fellow human beings.

Knowledge of other people's beliefs and ways of thinking must be used to build bridges, not to create conflicts.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

Extremists and populist movements are exploiting people's fear of those who are not like us. We can see the consequences in the form of terrorism and racially motivated violence.

We must never relinquish the vision of a humane society and a humane world.

We have a good life when we manage to live with both satisfied and unsatisfied needs, when we are not obsessed by what is beyond our reach.

Terrorism is contempt for human dignity.

Human dignity is independent of national borders. We must always defend the interests of the poor and the persecuted in other countries.

Don't believe those who claim that only left wing parties really care about employment.

Unfortunately, religion, like patriotism, is easy to misuse for political purposes.

It is typically Norwegian to be good

A picture may speak a thousand words, but still...

All I cared about that summer were suntans, beaches, boys and booze.

Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.

When I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky.

Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!

The idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus is a bunch of bullshit. Treat her like you would a friend, and you'll wind up with a lover.

If you take the time and put in the effort to write your own material and absolutely refuse to be denied the right to make your film it is difficult whatever colour you are.

I'm very interested in my new kitchen equipment shop. I've started it with two friends.

It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.

It is always more fun to play a bad guy than to be yourself as you can create a character unlike your own and be someone you are not for a change.