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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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Jo Nesbo
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: March 29
Association Football Player
Author
Economist
Journalist
Musician
Novelist
Screenwriter
Singer
Writer
Oslo
Norway
Think
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Replicate
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Millions
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More quotes by 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 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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Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before - to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.
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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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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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
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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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We're capable of understanding that someone has to drop an atomic bomb on a town of innocent civilians, but not that others have to cut up prostitutes who spread disease and moral depravity in the slums of London. Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness.
Jo Nesbo
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When you go visiting countries, you start reading the history of the place and you start getting into the culture, and then you have to leave. In my experience, all countries have hidden treasures.
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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Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.
Jo Nesbo
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The stock market to me was like a video game. When it went off, it was like turning the game off. It wasn't something I'd think about until I'd turn the machine on again.
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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A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality, not those of others.
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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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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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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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