Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

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 that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I have questioned myself about the brutality in the last few novels. Actually in 'The Leopard,' in hindsight, I feel I went a little bit too far with screaming blood. There are a couple of scenes that I regret and wish I had the chance to rewrite. 'Phantom' has less blood.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

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 was aware that my mother and father couldn't control things anymore. I guess I was afraid that we would end up on the street.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

Until the Eighties, Oslo was a rather boring town, but it's changed a lot, and is now much more cosmopolitan. If I go downtown, I visit the harbour to see the tall ships and the ferries, and to admire the modern architecture such as the Opera House or the new Astrup Fearnley Museum on the water's edge.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I tell myself I write because I want to say something true and original about the nature of evil. That is very ambitious - to say something about the human condition that hasn't been written before. Probably I will never succeed but that is what I strive to do.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I wasn't that into crime novels at all, but a friend introduced me to the work of Jim Thompson - I loved all his books.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

All interesting heroes have an Achilles' heel.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I don't have any writing routine. Sometimes I go to my local coffee shop and I write there for some hours. Apart from that, I am traveling most of the time. I write in airports, trains, hotel rooms... I can write anywhere.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

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 I started studying business administration and economics and became a financial analyst, and I worked at a brokerage firm as a stockbroker.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

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 just being a plot. And that's why character matters, why you've got to make the characters interesting.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I was a really bad taxi driver. I only collided twice but it was one time too much.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I've been watching more American TV because of all the great TV series that have come out in the last five to 10 years. I'm a 'Sopranos' fan, I'm a 'Wire' fan, I'm a 'Mad Men' fan. I'm a 'Deadwood' fan. It makes me optimistic for the future of storytelling on TV that producers are willing to take that kind of jump.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

For me, the best places to write are on planes, trains and at airports. Not hotel rooms but hotel lobbies. I'm really happy when I'm waiting for a plane and the message comes that it's three hours late. Great, I'll get to write!

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

I write something that I believe I've made up, and it's only when a friend later points it out to me that I realise I've been writing about myself again.

Jo Nesbo
Jo Nesbo

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.