Eva > Eva's Quotes

“..chaos is the neighbour of God: but everything's usually neat and tidy in hell...”
― Håkan Nesser

“Are you dying?"
Cato lit his cigarette. "It's not acute, perhaps, but we're all dying, Harry.”
― Jo Nesbø, Phantom

“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 are. Ghosts. Lifeless, powerless ghosts.”
― Jo Nesbø, Phantom

“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

“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

“Years ago, when I was working on my master's thesis, I went to New York for a semester as an exchange student. What struck me most was the sky. On that side of the world, so far away from the North Pole, the sky is flat and gray, a one-dimensional universe. Here, the sky is arched, and there's almost no pollution. In spring and fall the sky is dark blue or violet, and sunsets last for hours. The sun turns into a dim orange ball that transforms clouds into silver-rimmed red and violet towers. In winter, twenty-four hours a day, uncountable stars outline the vaulted ceiling of the great cathedral we live in. Finnish skies are the reason I believe in God.”
― James Thompson, Snow Angels

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“It's not easy being human. Especially when you are tired and overworked all the time... That's when you become inhuman.”
― Hakan Nesser, Münsters Fall

“The ritual works. The forms overcome doubts. We have learned over the centuries to weave meaning around emptiness and pain. A meaning and a pattern. We have been practising that for a very long time.”
― Håkan Nesser, Der unglückliche Mörder

“Words and form! We have a totally clear view of the world when we're fourteen years old, maybe sooner. But then we need another fifty years in order to create a language that can express those impressions. And in the mean time, of course, they've faded away.”
― Håkan Nesser

“The dead are older than the living, he thought. Irrespective of how old they were when they passed over to the other side, they have experienced something which makes them older than any living thing.”
― Håkan Nesser

“The May sunshine makes both the trolls and the elves disappear, he thought. They burst like soap bubbles. Only human beings remain, for a little while. We are a brief song beneath the sky, laughter in the wind that ends in a sigh. Then we too are gone.”
― Johan Theorin, Blodläge

“The problem is that people can't sleep when they want to, but if they are forbidden to do so, they can't help dropping off. So the method consisted of keeping your eyes wide open and fixing your gaze on some point of the bedroom wall. If by any chance you shut your eyes, hundreds of nasty little demons would pour out of the spot and eat you up. And you are absolutely not allowed to treat this as a joke.. According to Marc, you invariably fall asleep after ten minutes max, unless of course you replace the little devils with little fairies, which would stop you falling asleep at all.”
― Fred Vargas, The Accordionist