Nemesis Quotes
"The only indication that time hadn’t stood still was the traffic outside the window."
"Most bank employees press the silent robbery alarm almost in shock, Aune maintained."
"The more frightened the bank robber is, the less chance anyone has of making him change his mind."
"It was like pressing the pause button: all movement in the bank froze."
"People who are frightened enough stop thinking and act the way they have been programmed."
"The child stopped crying as suddenly as it had begun."
"A personality disorder doesn’t mean he is stupid. Sufferers are just as good, frequently better, at achieving their aims."
"Wilful murders like this one are almost always committed by people with a particular predisposition."
"You can pre-programme your brain to follow a particular pattern of behaviour."
"Such as when the parachute doesn’t open. Then, I hope, parachutists have pre-programmed emergency procedures."
"It is a matter of opening and closing routes for impulses."
"If you’re clever, you can easily pre-programme yourself, so-called self-hypnosis."
"I was so frightened I was on the point of urinating in my trousers."
"That villains by and large are as stupid as I am, go for easy options and have uncomplicated motives."
"In a nutshell, that things are very much what they seem to be."
"It’s impossible to see from a single move that this is what I’m thinking."
"All programs have an escape button, a password which brings you out of the trance."
"No one single professional group was any better than another at spotting lies; a cleaner was just as good as a psychologist or a policeman."
"People don’t cross the boundaries that Edward Hall talks about. And the Expeditor and Stine Grette are not supposed to."
"It’s a space reserved for partners or close family."
"It isn’t easy to find the things you’ve lost, but it is possible."
"If they hadn’t played tennis, I wouldn’t have minded."
"When you love someone enough, you find it incomprehensible that they can love you."
"The worst thing is to lose your reason for living."
"Never apologise for the questions you asked; apologise for the ones you didn’t ask."
"Revenge cleanses. The human soul is purged by the fear and compassion that tragedy evokes."
"The reason people in such situations instinctively have a desire to hide is not just because they feel physically vulnerable."
"Do you realise what you’ve done? She’s left me. She’s taken the children and gone."
"I'm sorry, but I’m here and I’m thinking about you. Even if I sound distant."
"You become stronger by being a little frightened."
"A head for a head. That is the Albanian expression for blood vengeance."
"Everyone has something they live for. Something which can be taken away from them."
"The winner of a war is not necessarily the victor."
"But as time passed, the rich man changed. Events made him realise that the family was the most important thing in his life."
"It's the general's fault if the commands are not understood."
"We haven't got any weapons, but maybe they have."
"The notion that others considered us happy was more important than whether we really were."
"You need to be frightened, Rakel. Frightened enough to do the right thing."
"He’s taken it with him, Øystein. What happened to the blue BMW down the street?"
"The most important thing in a relationship is honesty, don’t you think?"
"Revenge is the thinking man’s reflex, a complex blend of action and consistency no other animal species has so far succeeded in evolving."
"Justice is like water, it always finds a way."
"I suppose you could say that. Police work is, as we all know, teamwork."
"It’s the tradition. Can you understand? It’s an honour to take a brother’s or a father’s punishment, you know."
"What his father worried about wasn’t Tom’s self-esteem, it was what the neighbours and relatives thought about his only son becoming a ‘mere’ policeman."
"He takes his reprimand standing, like a schoolboy, and promises it will never happen again and they eat."
"Everyone has a need to do penance, Beate. You, too. God knows I do. And Raskol does. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality."
"Hatred – it’s sort of all you have left when you’ve lost everything else. And then it’s taken from you."
"The only thing more dangerous than excessively high blood pressure, Spiuni, is excessively low blood pressure. So keep still."
"You ask Raskol to point out the murderer. He’s after someone who threatened to testify against him in a murder trial. So what does he do? Of course, he points out this person."
"Sun Tzu is absolutely clear on love and hatred, Spiuni. Both love and hatred win in wars. They’re inseparable like Siamese twins. Rage and compassion are the losers."
"A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality, not those of others."
"You’ve got until midnight, Raskol. Then the officers will take you back."
"Sometimes a crime is so monstrous it clouds your vision. Externally or internally."
"The only person she had any contact with was Raskol."
"Our society imposes on us a moral duty to live and, hence, to condemn suicide."
"Christians worship a God who is the greatest avenger of them all."
"Love of life. Love. And yet hatred is strongest."
"It was one of those things that become brighter and more real with every year that passes."
"Youth. That was a time when nothing pleased him more than to see arrogant English kids with guitars and attitude."
"I don’t remember. It was a time in my life which was very... muddled."
"A boy sitting on the school roof, dangling his legs."