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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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Jo Nesbo
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: March 29
Association Football Player
Author
Economist
Journalist
Musician
Novelist
Screenwriter
Singer
Writer
Oslo
Norway
World
Doubt
Idea
Best
Ideas
Typewriter
Self
Typewriters
Every
Writers
Believe
Filled
Good
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More quotes by 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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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.
Jo Nesbo
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In most sports, your brain and your body will cooperate... But in rock climbing, it is the other way around. Your brain doesn't see the point in climbing upwards. Your brain will tell you to keep as low as possible, to cling to the wall and not get any higher. You have to have your brain persuading your body to do the right movements.
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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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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You get spoiled as a novelist because you get to be the director and the editor, and you play all the parts, but as a screenwriter, you are a bit down the ladder.
Jo Nesbo
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Harry looked at Bellman. He could not help but admire him. The way you admire a cockroach you flush down the toilet and it comes creeping back again and again and in the end it inherits the world.
Jo Nesbo
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Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.
Jo Nesbo
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Love is a greater mystery than death.
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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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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I think I was righteous. I saw myself as the good guy in my own movie. I didn't get into many fights when I was younger, but when I did, they were righteous. I always thought I was defending something good. I fought for friends who couldn't fight for themselves. I was still being selfish and arrogant, but I was focused on what was fair and unfair.
Jo Nesbo
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. We have this attitude that people become drug addicts against their will. That they couldn’t possibly want this kind of life. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe they don’t want to live like other people — it just wouldn’t suit them.
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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Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.
Jo Nesbo
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Losing your life is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is to lose your reason for living.
Jo Nesbo
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It was a sudden inspiration. But inspiration never came without a reason.
Jo Nesbo
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The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.
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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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 Nesbo