Jo Nesbø > Quotes

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

“Bjarne Møller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our 'accursed nature'. That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too....I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel strong, free and invulnerable.”
― Jo Nesbø, Frelseren

“Harry looked at Bellman. He could not help but admire him. The way you admire a cockroach you flush down the toilet and it comes creeping back again and again and in the end it inherits the world.”
― Jo Nesbo

“What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Everything you do leaves traces, doesn’t it. The life you’ve lived is written all over you, for those who can read.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“Doubt is faith's shadow.”
― Jo Nesbo, The Redeemer

“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...”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“There’s only one thing worse than not satisfying a desire. And that is not to feel any desire.”
― Jo Nesbo

“To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside”
― Jo Nesbø, The Devil's Star

“Losing your ife is not the worst think that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“I have problems with a religion which says that faith in itself is enough for a ticket to heaven. In other words, that the ideal is your ability to manipulate your own common sense to accept something your intellect rejects. It's the same model of intellectual submission that dictatorships have used throughout time, the concept of a higher reasoning without any obligation to discharge the burden of proof.”
― Jo Nesbø

“A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality, not those of others.”
― Jo Nesbo

“How's your girlfriend?'
‘Birgitta?’ Harry was quiet, ‘I don’t know. She wont talk to me. Feeling terrible, I hope.’
'Why do you hope she’s feeling terrible?’
‘I hope she loves me, of course.’
Sandra emitted a rasping laugh. ‘And how are you. Harry Holy?’
‘Terrible.’ Harry smiled sadly”
― Jo Nesbo, The Bat

“I think it's possible to learn. The problem is that we learn so damned slowly, so that by the time you've realized something, it's too late.”
― Jo Nesbø, Panserhjerte

“Evil is not a thing. It cannot take possession of you. It’s the opposite; it’s a void, an absence of goodness. The only thing you can be frightened of here is yourself.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“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.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Many people believe that right and wrong are fixed absolutes. That is incorrect, they change over time. The job of the historian is primarily to find the historical truth, to look at what the sources say and present them, objectively and dispassionately. If historians were to stand in judgment on human folly, our work would seem to posterity like fossils – the remnants of the orthodoxy of their time.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Redbreast

“When I propose a candidate for a job I don't do it because the person in question is the best but because he is the one the client will employ. I provide them with a head that is good enough, placed on a body they want. [...] The world is full of people who pay serious money for bad pictures by good artists. And mediocre heads on tall bodies.”
― Jo Nesbo, Headhunters

“But perhaps that's why we take snaps...to provide false evidence to underpin the false claim that we were happy. Because the thought that we weren't happy at least for some time during our lives is unbearable. Adults order children to smile in the photos, involve them in the lie, so we smile, we feign happiness.”
― Jo Nesbø, Phantom

“Just imagine walking away from something you’ve started. Something you really believed would be good. I don’t think i could ever do that.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“But everything good in this shit world is either by prescription, sold out, or so expensive you have to sell your soul to taste it. Life is a restaurant you can't afford. Death the bill for the food you didn't even have a chance to eat. So you order the most expensive thing on the menu - you're in for it anyway, right? - and if you're lucky, you get a mouthful.”
― Jo Nesbø, Phantom

“. We have this attitude that people become drug addicts against their will. That they couldn’t possibly want this kind of life. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe they don’t want to live like other people — it just wouldn’t suit them.”
― Jo Nesbo

“Love is a greater mystery than death.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“In traditional crime fiction every detective with any self-respect has an unfailing nose for when people are lying. It’s bullshit! Human nature is a vast impenetrable forest which no one can know in its entirety. Not even a mother knows her child’s deepest secrets.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“Did you know that darkness has a taste, Grandma?”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“The human soul was a deep, dark forest and all decisions are made alone.”
― Jo Nesbo, Don Bartlett- translator

“Revenge is the thinking man’s reflex, a complex blend of action and consistency no other animal species has so far succeeded in evolving. Evolutionary speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to the so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived.”
― Jo Nesbo

“Love surrounds you like steam in the shower. You can’t see the individual drops, but you get warm. And wet. And clean.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Son

“Everyone has a need to do penance. It’s a basic need, like washing. It’s about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It’s the balance we call morality.”
― Jo Nesbo

“Everyone knew that fat had become the new cancer, yet they bellyached about the dieting hysteria and applauded the "real" women's body. As though doing no exercise and being overfed was some kind of sensible mold.”
― Jo Nesbø, Phantom