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.

The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway.

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

I'm not a big crime reader, but I'm reading Michael Connelly's 'The Reversal.' I'm going back to his novels. I'm also reading Keith Richards' 'Life.' I'm always fascinated by the transition from the innocent late '60s and early '70s and the youth culture becoming an industry.

What we humans think we know is nothing compared to what we need to believe to numb the fear and pain.

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.

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