Just imagine walking away from something you've started. Something you really believed would be good. I don't think I could ever do that.

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.

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

All my friends who wanted to write had got nowhere trying to write the great European novel. So I deliberately steered clear of that and set out to write something story-led.

Love is a greater mystery than death.

Everyone has a need to do penance. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality.

I feel more related to some American crime writers than I do to Stieg Larsson.