The Snowman Quotes

“What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Evil is not a thing. It cannot take possession of you. It’s the opposite; it’s a void, an absence of goodness. The only thing you can be frightened of here is yourself.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“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

“Good stories are never about a string of successes but about spectacular defeats,” Støp had said. “Even though Roald Amundsen won the race to the South Pole, it’s Robert Scott the world outside Norway remembers. None of Napoleon’s victories is remembered like the defeat at Waterloo. Serbia’s national pride is based on the battle against the Turks at Kosovo Polje in 1389, a battle the Serbs lost resoundingly. And look at Jesus! The symbol of the man who is claimed to have triumphed over death ought to be a man standing outside the tomb with his hands in the air. Instead, throughout time Christians have preferred the spectacular defeat: when he was hanging on the cross and close to giving up. Because it’s always the story of the defeat that moves us most.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it,” Harry answered. “It’s a methodology.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Pain is a good thing; we would never survive without it. We should be grateful for pain.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“There's a strong social urge in man to be needed.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Do what boxers do, sway with the punches. Don’t resist. If any of what happens at work gets to you, just let it. You won’t be able to shut it out in the long term anyway. Take it bit by bit, release it like a dam, don’t let it collect until the wall develops cracks.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“if every baby was a perfect miracle, life was basically a process of degeneration.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“We're capable of understanding that someone has to drop an atomic bomb on a town of innocent civilians, but not that others have to cut up prostitutes who spread disease and moral depravity in the slums of London. Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“And what’s your unhappiness due to, Harry?
The words came out before he had time to think. “Loving someone who loves me.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“No one can leave someone they have good sex with. They can try, but they always go back. We’re simple souls like that, aren’t we?”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“For justice is a blunt knife, both as a philosophy and as a judge.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Jedes Baby war bei der Geburt ein perfektes Wunder, und das Leben im Grunde nur ein fortlaufender Zerstoerungsprozess.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“The more aged I become, the more I tend to the view that evil is evil, mental illness or no. We’re all more or less disposed to evil actions, but our disposition cannot exonerate us. For heaven’s sake, we’re all sick with personality disorders. And it’s our actions that define how sick we are.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“already imprisoned inside themselves. Prisons of hatred and self-contempt he recognised all too well.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die?”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“When the tough nuts crack, they crack in style.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“in order to isolate what was possible, you had to eliminate everything that was impossible”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Don’t, he thought. Don’t let it happen. Evil is not a thing. It cannot take possession of you. It’s the opposite; it’s a void, an absence of goodness. The only thing you can be frightened of here is yourself. Harry”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“We aren’t where it happens. We are what happens.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“He was talking nonstop. When had it happened? When had the boy turned eleven and decided to like music about various stages of death, alienation, freezing and general doom? Perhaps it ought to have worried Harry, but it didn’t. It was a starting point, a curiosity that had to be satisfied, clothes the boy had to try on to see if they fit. Other things would come along. Better things. Worse things.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“I’m single. Saturday morning has no value for people like us. You, on the other hand, should have a life. - Harry Hole”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Harry siempre estaba dispuesto a darle a la gente una segunda oportunidad de acabar en la lista negra.”
― Jo Nesbø, El muñeco de nieve

“But that was the way it was when you exposed yourself to the risks of maintaining fixed low rates; you always won the competition for the worst jobs.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Perhaps that was a thing about attractive women: A rejection demanded their respect, made them trust you more.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“Our bodyguard is a born-again Christian with a father complex, a drinking problem, intellectual limitations and not enough backbone to do his military service with honor.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“In his experience, the best ideas originated from flights of fancy, half-baked guesswork and erroneous snap judgments.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

“most important premise of any search: what you don’t find is just as important as what you do find.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman