“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, quote from Frelseren
“If you are unable to feel fear, you cannot be courageous.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Well, Espen, you're no drug addict, so why do you beg?"
"Because it's my mission to be mirror for mankind so that they can see which actions are great and which are small."
"And which are great?"
Espen sighed in despair, as though weary of repeating the obvious. "Charity. Sharing and helping your neighbor. The Bible deals with nothing else. In fact, you have to search extremely hard to find anything about sex before marriage, abortion, homosexuality, or a woman's right to speak in public. But, of course, it is easier for Pharisees to talk aloud about subordinate clauses than to describe and perform the great actions the Bible leaves us in no doubt about: You have to give half of what you own to someone who has nothing. Thousands of people are dying every day without hearing the words of God because these Christians will not let go of their earthly goods. I'm giving them a chance to reflect.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Doubt is faith’s shadow. If you are unable to doubt you can’t be a believer. It’s the same as with courage, Inspector. If you are unable to feel fear, you cannot be courageous.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Incomprehensible,” his colleagues tended to say when they discovered young people who had chosen to take their own lives. Harry assumed they said that to protect themselves, to reject the whole idea of it. If not, he didn’t understand what they meant by its being incomprehensible.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“—Yo tengo problemas con una religión que dice que la fe en sí es el billete de entrada al cielo. Es decir, que se trata de tu capacidad para manipular tu propia sensatez con el objeto de que acepte algo que tu inteligencia rechaza. Es el mismo modelo de sumisión intelectual que han utilizado las dictaduras a lo largo de la historia, la idea de una sensatez superior a la que no se deben exigir pruebas.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“a man does not become the leader of a flock through brute strength but through his ability to read situations correctly.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Harry thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘My point is that you soon become lonely if you want to use your own brain to find answers.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“È molto pulito qui" osservò Martine sfilandosi gli anfibi nell'ingresso.
"Non ho tante cose" disse Harry dalla cucina.
"Quali sono le sue preferite?"
Harry rifletté. "I dischi."
"Non gli album di fotografie?"
"Non credo nelle fotografie."
Martine entrò in cucina e si sedette su una delle sedie.
Harry osservò che aveva ripiegato le gambe sotto di sé come un gatto.
"Non ci crede?" disse. "In che senso?"
"Fanno perdere la capacità di dimenticare. Latte?"
Martine scosse il capo. "Però crede nei dischi."
"Sì. Mentono in un modo più vero."
"Ma non fanno perdere la capacità di dimenticare."
Harry si fermò mentre versava il caffè. Martine si mise di nuovo a ridere.
"Io invece non credo alla storia del commissario arrabbiato e deluso. Credo che in fondo lei sia un romantico, Hole."
"Andiamo in soggiorno" propose Harry. "Qualche giorno fa ho comprato un disco abbastanza bello. Non è ancora collegato a nessun ricordo.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“It’s not a corner,’ Harry said without a hint of a slur. ‘It’s an angle. Corners are on the outside. You walk round a corner, you don’t sit in one.’ ‘What about the expression a corner table?’ ‘That’s not a table in a corner, but a table with corners. As in a corner sofa.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“He considered what he should do with the rest of his life. And he considered whether you ever found out if you had made the right decisions while you were still alive. It”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Un buen investigador olvida todas las ocasiones en las que le ha fallado la intuición, no recuerda las pistas en las que había confiado antes de darse cuenta de que lo habían desviado del objetivo. Y el que, con espíritu ingenuo y olvidadizo, volvía a empezar de cero con renovado entusiasmo.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Halvorsen remembered Harry had once said that what separates a good detective from a mediocre one is the ability to forget. A good detective forgets all the times his gut instinct lets him down, forgets all the leads he has believed in that led nowhere. And pitches in, naïve and forgetful again, with undiminished enthusiasm. The”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“There was only one thing emptier than having lived without love, and that was having lived without pain.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“Yes,” Imtiaz said. “I know him. He brings empty bottles here to get the deposit.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
“case in California about a senator who—’ Harry”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Frelseren
Jo Nesbø
Born place: in Oslo, Norway
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“Take this guinea then and use it, not to burn the house down, but to make its windows blaze. And let the daughters of uneducated women dance round the new house, the poor house, the house that stands in a narrow street where omnibuses pass and the street hawkers cry their wares, and let them sing, ‘We have done with war! We have done with tyranny!’ And their mothers will laugh from their graves, ‘It was for this that we suffered obloquy and contempt! Light up the windows of the new house, daughters! Let them blaze!”
― Virginia Woolf, quote from Three Guineas
“But books are curious objects. They have the power to trap, transport, and even transform you if you are lucky. But in the end, books—even magic ones—are only objects pieced together from paper and glue and thread. That was the fundamental truth the readers forgot. How vulnerable the book really was. To fire. To the damp. To the passage of time. And to theft.”
― Traci Chee, quote from The Reader
“How is it?" I ask as we stroll towards the dressing rooms. "Working at the playground. That must be fun."
"Sure, they're just adorable," she says, "For the first five minutes. And then I want to wring their adorable little necks."
I stop, shocked. "I always figured you loved kids."
"Yeah, no." Kayla shakes her head emphatically. "One kid, I can do, even two-- just stick them in front of a Disney movie, let them play Xbox all night. But a herd of them?" She shudders.”
― Abby McDonald, quote from Getting Over Garrett Delaney
“Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.”
― Richard Brinsley Sheridan, quote from The School for Scandal
“It is quite ironic that those calling the loudest for 'morality' are typically the most immoral of all.”
― Christina Engela, quote from Demonspawn
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Structure and Interp...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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