The Kingdom Quotes

“It’s always surprised me that people fall for shampoo adverts that say it revitalises the hair. Hair has never had any life in it that can be revitalised. Hair’s dead, a cuticle of keratin growing out of a follicle. It’s got as much of life and you in it as the excrement you squeeze out. Hair is history, it’s what you’ve been, eaten and done. And you can’t go back. Grete’s perm was a mummified past, a permafrost, frightening as death itself.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“He believes it’s a romantic illusion that a person can follow their heart and their own inner desires, because beyond satisfying our most basic needs we don’t have any inner desires of our own. We desire what we see others around us desiring. Like dogs that are not interested in a toy bone suddenly have to have it when they see another dog wanting”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“If you want to get by with the minimum of effort then pretending to understand less than you do is not the stupidest tactic to employ. So maybe Egil wasn’t so dumb after all.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Shannon”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Because the ideal in Os is not to say more than is necessary, people have a developed understanding of what remains unexpressed.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“That the pain you get from ruining things for yourself is less than the joy it brings to drag others down with you.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“across”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Life is, in essence, a simple matter. Its only goal is the maximising of pleasure. Even our much-lauded curiosity, our inclination to explore the universe and human nature, is a mere manifestation of the desire to accentuate and protract this pleasure. So when our sums end up on the minus side, when life offers us more pain than pleasure, and there’s no longer any hope of things changing, we end it. We eat or drink ourselves to death, swim out to where the current is strong, smoke in bed, drive when drunk, put off seeing the doctor even though the lump on the throat is growing. Or quite simply hang ourselves in the barn. It’s banal when you realise for the first time that this is actually a completely practical alternative; indeed, it doesn’t even feel like the most important decision of your life. To build that house or get that education – these are bigger decisions than choosing to end your life sooner than it otherwise would have ended.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Post Office by Charles Bukowski, which made him – who”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Sometimes feelings of guilt are wasted and no good to anyone involved.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“about the wreckers, those people in the old days of sailing ships who gave false signals to sailors and lured them onto underwater reefs so that they could plunder the wrecks.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“dear, dear friends,’ his voice boomed. ‘It’s just so fucking great to see you all again. Fifteen years...’ He let it hang there for us to savour. ‘Most of you have been seeing each other every day, so you haven’t noticed the gradual changes, that we’ve actually got older. So let me just make one thing very clear, that when it comes to you guys...’ He took a breath, looked round with his cheeky, teasing smile. ‘I seem to be wearing a lot better than you.’ Laughter and loud protests. ‘Oh yes, oh yes!’ Carl shouted. ‘And it’s”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“told her that we Opgard people never haggled, but that”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“ate all our meals in the kitchen. Facing east”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“north side of the house, where the main entrance was. Why Dad hadn’t had the door open straight onto the yard and the road I really don’t know.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“On the Road. Lord of the Flies. The Virgin Suicides. The Sun Also Rises. The Wasp Factory. And”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom

“Der Vorteil, alles zu verlieren, liegt darin, dass man dann nichts mehr zu verlieren hat.”
― Jo Nesbø, The Kingdom