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.'

All interesting heroes have an Achilles heel.

I've read that it's the smell some carnivores use to find their prey. Imagine the trembling victim trying to hide, but knowing that the smell of its own fear will kill it.

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.

Doubt is faith's shadow.

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.

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.

To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside

Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.

Love is a greater mystery than death.

Love surrounds you like steam in the shower. You can't see the individual drops, but you get warm. And wet. And clean.

Situations and Circumstances do not make us unless we let them. Our thoughts and feelings are the music of our soul.

Many parts of a pine tree are edible.

I don't let things go unless I'm ready for them to go.

If we're going to talk about mayors, that under the current mayor [of New York in 2016], crime has continued to drop, including murders.

As cute as baby clothes are... I try to buy less.

The day was gray, the color of Europe.

The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them.

Let us not forget the genial miraculous force we have known to proceed from a book.

I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden

Think what a revolution it will be if we manage to get everyone to pay their taxes.