Harry Hole Quotes

“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

“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

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

“Incidentally, I really agree with those who say that the capacity to forgive says something about the essential quality of a person. I'm the lowest grade.'
'I didn't mean to criticize you.'
'I promise to be better in my next life...”
― Jo Nesbø, Panserhjerte

“...'I've never told you this, but when you were in your teens one of your teachers called us. He said you'd been fighting in the playground again. With two of the boys from the grade above, but this time it hadn't turned out so well--they'd had to send you to the hospital to have your lip sewn and a tooth taken out. I stopped your allowance, remember? Anyway, Øystein told me about the fight later. You flew at them because they'd filled Tresko's knapsack with water from the school fountain. If I remember correctly, you didn't even like Tresko much. Øystein said the reason you'd been hurt so badly was that you didn't give in. You got up time after time and in the end you were bleeding so much that the big boys became alarmed and went on their way.'
Olav Hole laughed quietly. 'I didn't think I could tell you that at the time--it would only have been asking for more fights--but I was so proud I could have wept. You were brave, Harry. You were scared of the dark, but that didn't stop you going there.'...”
― Jo Nesbø, Panserhjerte

“The truth is that no one lives off the truth and that's why no one cares about the truth. The truth we make for ourselves is just the sum of what is in someone's interest, balanced by the power they hold.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“Harry sensed the onset of resignation. No, he bloody didn't! On the FBI course they had examined cases where it had taken more than ten years to catch the killer. As a rule, it had been one tiny random detail, it seemed, that had solved the case. However, what actually cracked it was the fact that they had never given up, they had gone all fifteen rounds and if the opponent was still standing they screamed for a return fight.”
― Jo Nesbø

“I suppose you think it strange that people can walk around smiling on a day like today...I suppose you take it as a personal affront that the sun is playing on the leaves at a time when you'd rather see the world collapse in misery and weep tears. Well, Harry, my friend, what can I say to you? Things aren't like that.”
― Jo Nesbø, Flaggermusmannen

“Sick is a relative concept. We’re all sick. The question is, what degree of functionality do we have with respect to the rules society sets for desirable behavior? No actions are in themselves symptoms of sickness. You have to look at the context within which these actions are performed.”
― Jo Nesbø The Redbreast

“Perhaps he had discovered some answers, but not all of them. never all of them. Like whether madness and evil are two different entities, or whether when we no longer understand the purpose of destruction we simply term it madness. (...) Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness.”
― jo nesbo

“And over the phone he could hear the ten legged insect already scrabbling across the keyboard!”
― Jo Nesbø, Police

“Anna took love very seriously. She loved love. No, worshipped, that's the word. She worshipped love. That was the only thing which had any place in her life. That and hatred. Do you know what neutron stars are?'
'They're planets with such compactness and high surface gravity that if I dropped this cigarette on one of them it would strike with the same force as an atom bomb. It was the same with Anna. Her gravitation to love-and hatred-was so strong that nothing could exist in the space between them. Every tiny detail caused an atomic explosion. Do you understand? It took me time to understand. She was like Jupiter-hidden behind an eternal cloud of sulphur. And humour. And sexuality.”
― Jo Nesbø

“Somehow it felt like everything was missing, and asphalt and the bridge and railway line. He came to the end of the road and then everything turned into nothingness. It's over. How he just hated that word.”
― Jo Nesbø, Police