What we humans think we know is nothing compared to what we need to believe to numb the fear and pain.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

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

When I finish a book, I'm so exhausted that I'm sort of letting myself think that this could be the end.

You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.

When you're an established name, you know that a children's book will have a pretty good chance of getting picked up. Like Madonna. It's not that I had this great idea. Actually, in my case, it was a great idea.

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.

Good police officers are ugly.

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.

I think my heart is quite selfish. If I followed my heart, I would not be a good person. But I have moral principles. I have to sit down and reflect.

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway.

They say that every writer, they write about himself, and I think that to a certain extent that is true. But also we are creators of fiction.

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.