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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
Play
Director
Down
Related Quotes:
" 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
Best
Believe
Day
" 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
They Say
Think
Write
" The nature of Scandinavians is that they don't talk so much, there will be these dark secrets, and most things are under-communicated. "
Jo Nesbo
Nature
Will
Secrets
" 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
Happy
Good
Day
" 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
Hotel
Waiting
Best
" 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
Feel
Regret
Chance
" Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction. "
Jo Nesbo
Construction
Plot
Start
" 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
Three
Home
Puzzle
" 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
Evil
Myself
Nature
" What do we mean by 'crazy?' What do we mean by 'mad?' At what point is a person just different and at what point can we call it a disease and say that they are not responsible for their actions? Or are we all slaves to the chemical processes that go on in our brains? "
Jo Nesbo
Person
Actions
Crazy
" 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
Me
Stock Market
Think
" 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
Friend
Writing
Up
" The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway. "
Jo Nesbo
Now
Norway
Myth
" 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
Business
Going
Financial
" 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
Water
Architecture
Museum
" 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
Crime
Myself
Great
" As I say, we Norwegians love our woolens, and you can buy some beautiful knitwear in Oslo. They might cost you a bit - but they will last. "
Jo Nesbo
You
Beautiful
Last
" 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
Experience
Reading
History
" 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
Universe
Art
You
" 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
Change
Book
Pressure
" 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
People
Think
Soccer
" Ever since the '70s, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were the godfathers of Scandinavian crime. They broke the crime novel in Scandinavia from the kiosks and into the serious bookstores. "
Jo Nesbo
Since
Broke
Crime
" 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
Great
Book
Chance
" Thanks to the success of Henning Mankell and Peter Hoeg, there wasn't the same stigma attached to writing genre thrillers in Scandinavia as there was in many other cultures. Quite the opposite, in fact. "
Jo Nesbo
Thanks
Writing
Success
" Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel. "
Jo Nesbo
Point
Write
Ever
" I'm afraid I didn't really like Caracas in Venezuela. From what I saw it seemed so crime-ridden that you really have to be on your guard all the time. "
Jo Nesbo
Your
You
Time
" 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
Time
Writing
I Am
" 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
Roads
Love
Childhood
" 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
Body
Brain
Rock
" 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
Life
Think
Water