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.

Well, it is in fact possible to put things behind you, Rakel. The art of dealing with ghosts is to dare to look at them long and hard until you know that is what they...

In most sports, your brain and your body will cooperate… But in rock climbing, it is the other way around. Your brain doesn’t see the point in climbing upwards. Your brain will tell you to...

When I was a teenager, my father went bust. He could have declared himself bankrupt, but he was an honourable man and he insisted on paying back all his debts. That almost ruined the family....

I don’t think I’ll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to...

Love’s the sum total of all the little things you can never really put your finger on. Love surrounds you like steam in the shower. You can’t see the individual drops but you get warm.

At nineteen I was pretty sure I was going to be a professional soccer player. At that time I played for one of the Norwegian premier leagues. But I tore ligaments in both knees, so...

‘Phantom’ was for me an interesting technique of telling the story. You have one voice that it is in the present telling what is happening, and then there’s one voice from the past that’s also...

Balance is of the essence,’ she said. ‘That appies to all good, harmonious relationships. Balance in guilt, balance in shame and pangs of conscience.

For many years, it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months, travel the world, through coups d’etat, assassinations, famines, massacres and tsunamis, and come home to find...

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,...

I’m just an entertainer. In a way crime stories are boring. A crime’s been committed and at the end you know it will be solved. So you’ve got to make the story interesting besides it...

Wilhelm’s smile reminded Harry of his father’s sad, resigned smile, the smile of a man looking backwards because that’s where the things that made him smile were.

Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before – to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.

All my friends who wanted to write had got nowhere trying to write the great European novel. So I deliberately steered clear of that and set out to write something story-led.

What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die.

I was sleeping in a water bed for a couple of years, recommended by my doctor. I was never comfortable in that water bed. In the middle of the night you would hear something happening...

Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.

Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been...

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...

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.

I have to feel that I’m going somewhere all the time. By definition, if you have this urge to go places, then you can’t be 100 percent happy where you are. It’s not like I...

. 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...

Those golden minutes before you are completely awake, when your mind is just drifting, you have no censorship; you are ready to develop any kind of idea. That’s when I come up with the best...

You know someone’s okay if they can ignore things they can’t do anything about and move on.