Nemesis Quotes

“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

“Losing your ife is not the worst think that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“When you see something so often you tend to develop a blindness to it.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Never apologise for the questions you asked; apologise for the ones you didn’t ask.’ The”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Everyone asks what the meaning of life is, but no one asks about the meaning of death.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“They maintain he wrote The Art of War. Personally, I believe it was a woman. On the surface, The Art of War is a manual about tactics on the battlefield, but at its deepest level it describes how to win conflicts. Or to be more precise, the art of getting what you want at the lowest possible price. The winner of a war is not necessarily the victor. Many have won the crown, but lost so much of their army that they can only rule on their ostensibly defeated enemies’ terms. 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, Spiuni.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“The process of dying, much like the process of being born, is a very intimate affair. The reason people in such situations instinctively have a desire to hide is not just because they feel physically vulnerable. Dying in the sight of others, as in a public execution, is a double punishment as it is an affront to the victim's modesty in the most brutal way conceivable. It was one of the reasons public executions were considered to have a more criminally preventative effect on the population than execution in the solitude of the cell. Some allowances were made, however, such as obliging the executioner to wear a mask. That wasn't, as many think, to conceal the executioner's identity. The mask was out of consideration for the condemned man, so that he didn't feel a stranger was close to him at the moment of death.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Should a person be punished for showing no consideration towards an idiot behaving like an idiot?”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Who was the mad bastard who taught you to drive?’ he asked, holding on tight as they swerved in and out between cars on the three-lane motorway leading to Ekeberg tunnel. ‘Self-taught,’ Beate said.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Our society imposes on us a moral duty to live and, hence, to condemn suicide.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Catharsis. Revenge cleanses. Aristotle wrote that the human soul is purged by the fear and compassion that tragedy evokes. It’s a frightening thought that we fulfil the soul’s innermost desire through the tragedy of revenge, isn’t it.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Our society imposes on us a moral duty to live and, hence, to condemn suicide. However, with her apparent admiration for antiquity, Anna may have found her prop in the Greek philosophers, who thought every person should choose for themselves when they die. Nietzsche also considered that the individual had a full moral right to take his own life. He used the word freitod or voluntary death.’ Aune raised a pointed index finger. ‘But she had to confront another moral dilemma. Revenge. Insofar as she professed to be a Christian, Christian ethics demand that you should not take revenge. The paradox is, naturally, that Christians worship a God who is the greatest avenger of them all. Defy him and you burn in eternal hell, an act of revenge which is completely out of proportion to the crime, almost a case for Amnesty International, if you ask me.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“You can believe what you like. Not everyone can love. We–and they–may believe that, but it is so. They learn the movements, the lines and the steps, that’s all. Some of them are so good they can fool us for quite a while. What surprises me is not that they succeed, but that they can be bothered. Why go to all the effort to have a feeling reciprocated which you don’t understand? Do you understand, Constable?”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“A personality disorder doesn’t mean he is stupid. Sufferers are just as good, frequently better, at achieving their aims. What distinguishes them from us is that they want different things.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Experience had thought him that silence was the most effective of all methods to make people talk. When two strangers sit facing each other, silence functions like a vacuum, sucking words out.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“No one knows why Raskol gave himself up,’ Harry said. ‘I’m convinced, though, that it was in order to do penance. For someone whose only freedom is the freedom to wander, prison is the ultimate self-punishment. Taking a life is different from taking money. Suppose he had committed a crime that caused him to lose his balance. So he chooses to do secret penance, for himself and God–if he has one.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“The social space between people who don't know each other is form one to three and a half metres. - Beate Lonne”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen.’ Harry already knew how he would continue. ‘The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“It was gone now, the little smile, the glee that Spite gives. The Small-mindedness. The Self-righteousness. The Sadism. The four ‘S’s of revenge.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Don't think about what you are searching for. Think about what you find. Why is that there? Should it be there? What does it mean? It's like reading - if you think about an "l" while looking at a "k", you won't see the words.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Talvez Anna tenha lido Sun Tzu - disse Harry. - E soubesse que a primeira regra da guerra é o engano.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“As beautiful as an electric chair,”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Did you know that humans are the only living creatures to practice revenge ? - Ståle Aune”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“One maintained that a country like the USA, which stands for certain values like freedom and democracy, has a moral responsibility to avenge attacks on its territory as they are also attacks on its values. ‘Alone the desire for retaliation–and the execution of it–can protect such a vulnerable system as democracy.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“We were hounded everywhere we went. They claimed we were thieves. Of course we were, but they didn’t even bother to gather evidence. The proof was we were gypsies. I’m telling you this because to recognise a gypsy you have to know he was born with a low-caste mark on his forehead. We have been persecuted by every single regime in Europe There is no difference between fascists, communists and democrats; the fascists were just a little more efficient. Gypsies make no particular fuss about the Holocaust because the difference from the persecution we were used to was not that great. You don’t seem to believe me?”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“research into why people commit suicide. Do you know what they found the most common cause was?’ ‘That was the sort of thing I was hoping you could answer.’ Harry had to slalom between people on the narrow pavement to keep up with the tubby psychologist. ‘That they didn’t want to live any longer,’ Aune said. ‘Sounds like someone deserves a Nobel Prize.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“The social space between people who don’t know each other is from one to three and a half metres. That’s the distance you would keep if the situation allowed, but look at bus queues and toilets. In Tokyo people stand closer to each and feel comfortable, but variations from culture to culture are in fact relatively minor.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“The great thing about facts is that you don't have to ponder whether they're desirable or not.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Он давно уже обратил внимание, что музыканты-бунтари – кумиры его молодости – с годами, как правило, оседают отнюдь не на бунтарских радиоканалах. Харри прекрасно понимал, что это может означать только одно – он тоже стареет.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

“Don’t think about what you are searching for. Think about what you find. Why is that there? Should it be there? What does it mean? It’s like reading–if you think about an “l” while looking at a “k”, you won’t see the words.”
― Jo Nesbø, Nemesis