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My father grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., with my grandparents. In Norwegian my name is pronounced 'Yoo' but my father used to call me 'Joe.'

Jo Nesbo

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Jo Nesbo
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: March 29
Association Football Player
Author
Economist
Journalist
Musician
Novelist
Screenwriter
Singer
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Father
Pronounced
Used
Grandparents
Grandparent
Brooklyn
Grew
Name
Names
Norwegian
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Norwegians

More quotes by Jo Nesbo

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My influence is probably more from American crime writers than any Europeans. And I hardly read any Scandinavian crime before I started writing myself. I wasn't a great crime reader to begin with.
Jo Nesbo
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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 Nesbo
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The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway.
Jo Nesbo
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A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality, not those of others.
Jo Nesbo
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Some artists see a gig as an audience worshipping them. I think it is about having a great time together. I have a part as the singer. An audience has a part. Playing a gig doesn't make me high on myself.
Jo Nesbo
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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
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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
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I feel more related to some American crime writers than I do to Stieg Larsson.
Jo Nesbo
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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
Jo Nesbo
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I was sleeping in a water bed for a couple of years, recommended by my doctor. I was never comfortable in that water bed. In the middle of the night you would hear something happening - water and bubbles. I would always think there was some intelligent life in the water bed.
Jo Nesbo
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When I propose a candidate for a job I don't do it because the person in question is the best but because he is the one the client will employ. I provide them with a head that is good enough, placed on a body they want. [...] The world is full of people who pay serious money for bad pictures by good artists. And mediocre heads on tall bodies.
Jo Nesbo
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I have to feel that I'm going somewhere all the time. By definition, if you have this urge to go places, then you can't be 100 percent happy where you are. It's not like I enjoy being miserable for weeks on end. But I think it's good to be miserable for about one day every third week - that's ideal for me.
Jo Nesbo
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Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.
Jo Nesbo
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Revenge is the thinking man's reflex, a complex blend of action and consistency no other animal species has so far succeeded in evolving. Evolutionary speaking, the practice of taking revenge has shown itself to the so effective that only the most vengeful of us have survived.
Jo Nesbo
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Love is a greater mystery than death.
Jo Nesbo
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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
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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
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When you're an established name, you know that a children's book will have a pretty good chance of getting picked up. Like Madonna. It's not that I had this great idea. Actually, in my case, it was a great idea.
Jo Nesbo
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Crime fiction is a genre for writing stories about people - about conflict, about guilt, about passion, about the human condition.
Jo Nesbo
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I don't think I'll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to every game. Running onto the pitch each week was just the most fantastic feeling. Nothing can beat that.
Jo Nesbo