Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

I wasn't that into crime novels at all, but a friend introduced me to the work of Jim Thompson - I loved all his books.

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.'

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.

When I finish a book, I'm so exhausted that I'm sort of letting myself think that this could be the end.

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.

A rat is neither good nor evil. It does what a rat has to do.