Scandinavian Quotes & Sayings

It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not. — Alfred Nobel

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

I am the first prime minister of this country of neither English nor French origin. So I determined to bring about a Canadian citizenship that knew no hyphenated consideration ... I'm very happy to be able to say that in the House of Commons today in my party we have members of Italian, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Chinese and Ukrainian origin and they are all Canadians. — John Diefenbaker

I'm a Scandinavian Midwest girl who doesn't always know what's going on in herself emotionally, which is why I make music in order to figure it out. — Erika M. Anderson

He read his own obituary and an editorial lamenting his demise and praising his fortitude and immediately began to think up witty ways of writing to the paper to announce his continued and uninterrupted existence. The other two joined in the game with enthusiasm, and soon all three of them were howling with laughter and emptying bottles at a rate which would have alarmed even a depressed Scandinavian. — Louis De Bernieres

There are criminals everywhere these days, you know. One might end up missing the police! Who would have thought that possible?
The Maid
The Informer by Steen Langtrup — Steen Langstrup

Is this your first case?' This from the ugliest person Winter had ever seen. His face resembled five pounds of meat loaf molded by an arthritic potter. — Ake Edwardson

The chair was a simple Scandinavian design of chrome and white leather. Beautiful, clean, and silent, with not an ounce of warmth, like a fine rain falling under the midnight sun. — Haruki Murakami

You'll be very close to him when you shoot him. So shove the pistol in his face and pull the trigger instantly."

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer — Steen Langstrup

I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style. — Chris Abani

In a way, all Scandinavian movies are descendants of the original Scandinavian Christian-metaphor movie, Danish director Carl Dreyer's 1928 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' one of the seven or eight best films ever made and impossible to watch more than once. — Steve Erickson

Your mind is your spirit; do not seek any other hidden soul inside you! All is in the brain! The depiction of a spirit rising to the sky is no more real than a medieval Scandinavian fairytales! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The origin of the word knowledge itself is strongly tied to trees. "In the Germanic languages, most terms for learning, knowledge, wisdom, and so on are derived from the words for tree or wood," says Hageneder. "In Anglo Saxon we have witan (mind, consciousness) and witige (wisdom); in English, 'wits,' 'witch', and wizard'; and in modern German, Witz (wits, joke). These words all stem from the ancient Scandinavian root word vid, which means 'wood' (as in forest, not timber). — Manuel Lima

No doubt there is a Scandinavian wave. I guess everybody is just surfing their wave until it breaks and hoping it won't be too soon. — Tobias Lindholm

And it is practically the same in the case of the four or five million poor peasants in France, and also for Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and two of the Scandinavian countries. Everywhere small and medium sized industry prevails. — Herman Gorter

It's not just dark in Scandinavia. — Bo Brennan

I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of Europe till the eleventh century; 800 years ago the Norwegians were still worshipers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways. — Thomas Carlyle

Whenever someone refers to me as someone "who happens to be black," I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on. — Thomas Sowell

Programming is not all the same. Normal written languages have different rhythms and idioms, right? Well, so do programming languages. The language called C is all harsh imperatives, almost raw computer-speak. The language called Lisp is like one long, looping sentence, full of subclauses, so long in fact that you usually forget what it was even about in the first place. The language called Erlang is just like it sounds: eccentric and Scandinavian. — Robin Sloan

Sick is a relative concept. We're all sick. The question is, what degree of functionality do we have with respect to the rules society sets for desirable behavior? No actions are in themselves symptoms of sickness. You have to look at the context within which these actions are performed. — Jo Nesbo

Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade without anyone's noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it's pitch-black. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. — Tove Jansson

The letter K was the first one in the alphabet which had not, with more or less justification, been used to designate other vitamins, and it also happened to be the first letter in the word 'koagulation' according to the Scandinavian and German spelling. — Henrik Dam

Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer. — Henry David Thoreau

I do consider myself a Norwegian writer, or a Scandinavian writer, as my family tree reaches into both Denmark and Sweden. I don't think about it, of course, when I am writing. — Per Petterson

Please let him come, and give me the resilience & guts to make him respect me, be interested, and not to throw myself at him with loudness or hysterical yelling; calmly, gently, easy baby easy. He is probably strutting the backs among crocuses now with seven Scandinavian mistresses. And I sit, spiderlike, waiting, here, home; Penelope weaving webs of Webster, turning spindles of Tourneur. Oh, he is here; my black marauder; oh hungry hungry. I am so hungry for a big smashing creative burgeoning burdened love: I am here; I wait; and he plays on the banks of the river Cam like a casual faun. — Sylvia Plath

I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they'd say yes. — George R R Martin

I've been washing stairs my whole life. One day after the other. Since I was five years old. I've never complained. Shame on you. I'm embarrassed to have a son like you ... can't even look after his own bicycle. You just wait until your dad comes home. Then you'll be in trouble, I can tell you that much.
Poul-Erik's Mother
The Informer — Steen Langstrup

She'd grown up hearing about epic battles between Guardians and demons, of legendary Wardens and their brave fight to keep the nocturnis at bay. To her, it all had the air of fairy tales, history through the lens of the Brothers Grimm. She listened to the tales the same way she listened to Beowulf, and had the same expectation of ever featuring in one of those famous battles as of facing Grendel's mother in a Scandinavian swamp.
Yet here she was, not just fighting the forces of evil but somehow tied to her very own Guardian, acting for all intents and purposes like the Warden she had once dreamed of becoming. — Christine Warren

In countries where income from labor is most equally distributed, such as the Scandinavian countries between 1970 and 1990, the top 10 percent of earners receive about 20 percent of total wages and the bottom 50 percent about 35 percent. — Thomas Piketty

We still retain in Britain a deeper sense of class, a more obvious social stratification, and stronger class resentments, than any of the Scandinavian, Australasian, or North American countries. — Anthony Crosland

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

Scandinavian crime fiction has become a great success all across the world and rightfully so. Sjowall and Wahloo ushered in a whole generation of Swedish crime writers, many of whom are now available in English. — Camilla Lackberg

Nationalism in Norway was very strong in 1905, that we must be free of Sweden. But I must say, I'm not 100 percent sure that was a wise decision. We had the war; we were occupied by Germans from 1940 to '45. And if there had been one Scandinavian country, then it would not have been so very easy probably to go ahead with the occupation. — Olav Thon

There are some long silences in Scandinavian and some Japanese films, when the audience knows action is taking place, but the audience hears no action. — John Henrik Clarke

In this fast-developing world, particularly in the fast-transforming China market, we really need to take this opportunity and offer a modern interpretation of Scandinavian design which fits people's demands perfectly. — Li Shufu

The days that followed passed slowly. I lay in my hotel room and watched the kind of strange European TV that would probably make perfect sense if I understood the language, but because I didn't, the programs just seemed dreamlike and baffling. In one studio show a group of Scandinavian academics watched as one of them poured liquid plastic into a bucket of cold water. It solidified, they pulled it out, handed it around the circle, and, as far as I could tell, intellectualized on its random misshapenness. I phoned home but my wife didn't answer. It crossed my mind that she might be dead. I panicked. Then it turned out that she wasn't dead. She had just been at the shops. — Jon Ronson

My husband is from Finland, so every so often I'll throw a Scandinavian-themed party. — Sarah Rafferty

There were 10 or 15 years where all the Scandinavian movies were gray and light brown. I got really bored with it. I really felt that movies had to have that life of vivid colors. — Susanne Bier

Fuck!" he shouts. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
"I'm not too fucking fond of loud noises, Bruno. Maybe it'd be a good idea if you backed up to the curb and got your insurance papers ready. We wouldn't want the police to get involved, would we?"
Conversation between Bruno Hanson and George Hanson
In The Shadow of Sadd. — Steen Langstrup

My type is more along the lines of a Scandinavian sex bomb named Plum. — Christina Lauren

All that crap about love and fairness and doing something with your life, Bruno ... Those are luxury problems. The CEO's wife can go around worrying about that stuff. People like us from the projects have to play by a different set of rules."

George Hanson
In The Shadow of Sadd — Steen Langstrup

Everybody naked, nobody happy. It's Scandinavian art porn. — Kelly Link

As Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in Time, in no other Western country is the teaching of Evolution regarded as controversial. Throughout the world, one way or another, most Christian denominations have managed to reconcile belief in God with belief in the mechanisms of natural selection. A French or German or Scandinavian politician who called for students to entertain as a reasonable deduction from existing evidence the proposition that Earth is at most 10,000 years old would be bundled off to a mental hospital. — Katha Pollitt

There were tons of bronzed Scandinavian types at the Sorbonne. Marvellously blond and healthy and shining white teeth. Funny thing though, because someone told me that if you actually go to Scandinavia none of the people who actually live there look like that. It's just a front they put up when they're abroad. — Charlotte Bingham

My liking for Scandinavian crime fiction led me into exploring literary writers from the same countries. — Diane Setterfield

When we were kids, Fitz was unbeatable in Scrabble. It would drive Eric crazy, because he wasn't used to be bested by Fitz in much of anything. But Fitz had an uncanny memory, and once he saw a word, he wouldn't forget it. [ ... ] But Eric wasn't used to be second-best, so he commissioned me into teaching him the dictionary. [ ... ] Three weeks after we'd taken on the English language, it rained on a Saturday. "Hey," Fitz suggested, like usual. "Bet I can whip you in Scrabble."
Eric looked at me. "Huh," he said, "What makes you think that?"
"Um ... the five hundred and seventy thousand other times I've kicked your ass?"
Fitz knew. The moment Eric laid down the letters J-A-R-L and then casually mentioned that it was a term for a Scandinavian noble, Fitz's eyes lit up. — Jodi Picoult

I think that being Jewish has generated an extremely strong sense of the importance of family. If I look at my Scandinavian colleagues, they don't have that urgency about family. All my movies are about that. — Susanne Bier

You just hang in there, boy, hang in with that apprenticeship of yours, do you hear me? You are lucky they would even take someone like you. You're a child of the slums. A ragtag. On top of that, you're a whining piece of shit. Nobody will ever do anything for you. Do you understand what I'm saying? They'll let you starve to death, no problem. Nobody is going to cry on your grave.
Poul-Erik's Mother
The Informer by Steen Langstrup — Steen Langstrup

If your like a powerful modern thriller with an historical core in the Scandinavian style of many separate threads which eventually come together, Purple Killing will grip you. It is my latest book and a companion to Hitler's First Lady, but in a very different style. Set equally in the US and UK. — Malcolm Blair-Robinson

How easy it is to love. — Tove Jansson

That crap about doing something with your life are luxury problems. People like us have to play by a different rules.
#ShadowofSadd #Books — Steen Langstrup

You don't turn your back on your destiny. — Trine Villemann

You forget, when you're in the Scandinavian countries, you forget they don't speak English first and they speak better than I do. — Doug Stanhope

At the centre of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the blond beast of prey, the magnificent blond beast avidly prowling round for spoil and victory; this hidden centre needs release from time to time, the beast must out again, must return to the wild: - Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility, Homeric heroes, Scandinavian Vikings - in this requirement they are all alike. It was the noble races which left the concept of 'barbarian' in their traces wherever they went; even their highest culture betrays the fact that they were conscious of this and indeed proud of it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I covered the body with a rug. You think I'm an idiot?
Bruno Hanson
In The Shadow of Sadd. — Steen Langstrup

The Norse way of speaking, no one really knew what the Vikings sounded liked, they were Norsemen. The accent is really a combination of a Scandinavian accent, maybe with a Swedish accent and an old way of speaking. — Katheryn Winnick

There is always a unique atmosphere in the car when you drive through the City with a dead body in the back. — Steen Langstrup

I had my first cigarette when I was five," he says, making rings of smoke. "With my mother. — Steen Langstrup

Scandinavian-Danish cuisine was something quite rustic, mostly known for pastries and smorgasbord cuisine, which in itself has become a joke. — Rene Redzepi

Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible. — Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

More humane societies are usually smaller, like the Scandinavian countries and Holland, where it is much easier to reach consensus and cooperation. — David Korten

In Sweden they have a very different approach. There, preschool children are encouraged to play and relax without any structured learning for the first six years of their lives. They go for nature walks every day, even in the bitter Scandinavian winter. They are not taught to read until they are seven years of age, yet by the age of ten, Swedish children consistently lead European literacy rankings. — Goldie Hawn

I think Matt Yglesias is wrong to declare that the world of 'This Town' is dying, unless he thinks publicly financed elections, strict lobbying bans and Scandinavian-style wealth distribution are imminent. — Alex Pareene

They died. Along with three other men who had joined our group. We were betrayed. The porter had told his girlfriend about the operation. They'd only just met each other. Jens shot her a week later."

Johannes aka 'BB'
The Informer — Steen Langstrup

Cassidy is the best girlfriend ever. I've dated her for a full two months longer than anyone else. She's smart and witty and original and can chug a beer faster than most guys I know. On top of that, she is absolutely beautiful. I mean spanktacular. Talk about pure colors. She's high-definition. Scandinavian blond hair, eyes as blue as fiords, skin like vanilla ice cream or flower petals or sugar frosting - or really not like anything else but just her skin. It makes my hair ache. Of course, she does believe in astrology, but I don't even care about that. It's a girl thing. I think of it like she has constellations and fortunes whirling around inside her. — Tim Tharp

But I'm completely innocent in this case. I'm the victim. Don't you understand? If she'd just dressed in an appropriate manner, nothing would have happened. I'm a peaceful man, and now I'm going to prison.
Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHz
In The Shadow of Sadd. — Steen Langstrup

What is the name of the woman on the telephone?"
"Alis K."
"Is that her real name?"
"No."

Conversation between 'BB' and his wife Grete
The Informer — Steen Langstrup

It is often said, rather flatly, that Russian ballet was a mix of French, Scandinavian (through the teacher Johansson), and Italian sources - that Russia, through Petipa, absorbed all of these and made them her own. This is certainly true; but what really changed ballet was the way it became entwined with Imperial Russia herself. Serfdom and autocracy, St. Petersburg and the prestige of foreign culture, hierarchy, order, aristocratic ideals and their ongoing tension with more eastern folk forms: all of these things ran into ballet and made it a quintessentially Russian art. — Jennifer Homans

I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow. — Hannah Kent

I desperately wanted to play the part of Darth Vader's mother - I think she ended up being played by a Scandinavian actress - because my son was completely crazy about 'Star Wars.' — Lindsay Duncan

We saved the lives of a whole family that night. Children, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, all sailed to safety in Sweden inside a little fisherman's boat."

Johannes aka 'BB'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup — Steen Langstrup

Human pigmentation is contained solely in the epidermis, the skin's outer layer. Lose the epidermis, we all look Scandinavian, — Kathy Reichs

Foreign food isn't really my thing. I tasted whale once, and I was sick for a week. — Steen Langstrup

You know, 'Viggo' is a pretty dorky name in Denmark. It's like 'Oswald' or something. It's a very old Scandinavian name, at least 1,000 years old. — Viggo Mortensen

Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology. — Halldor Laxness

F***, some people are so determined to be good that it makes me want to puke.
Bruno Hanson in
In The Shadow of Sadd. — Steen Langstrup

Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been Norwegian, he would definitely have written at least one thriller. — Jo Nesbo

I just can't comprehend, that you, Borge, of all people, couldn't keep your mouth shut. — Steen Langstrup

Seattle's Hooverville Northwest of downtown, in the old Scandinavian neighborhood of Ballard, tugboats belching plumes of black smoke nosed long rafts of logs into the — Daniel James Brown

They say that the best furniture and clothing design from the '50s and '60s is Scandinavian or Milanese. — Christian Lacroix

I am naturally a Nordic - a chalk-white, bulky Teuton of the Scandinavian or North-German forests - a Viking berserk killer - a predatory rover of Hengist and Horsa - a conqueror of Celts and mongrels and founders of Empires - a son of the thunders and the arctic winds, and brother to the frosts and the auroras - a drinker of foemen's blood from new picked skulls - a friend of the mountain buzzards and feeder of seacoast vultures - a blond beast of eternal snows and frozen oceans - a prayer to Odin and Thor and Woden and Alfadur, the raucous shouter of Niffelheim - a comrade of the wolves, and rider of nightmares — H.P. Lovecraft

When the game ended, Mike laid down his control paddle. "So you've met the Nordic goddess, right?"
Aria glanced up at him warily. "Excuse me?"
Mike rolled his eyes. "Duh. Klaudia, which I'm pretty sure is Scandinavian for sex vixen. — Sara Shepard

Tiny as a sparrow, fierce as an eagle, Lisbeth Salander is one of the great Scandinavian avengers of our time, an angry bird catapulting into the fortresses of power and wiping smiles off the faces of smug, predatory pigs. — A.O. Scott

I thought I could organise freedom/How Scandinavian of me ... — Bjork

Part of the reason why Scandinavian crime has been so popular is the landscape. It is just so strong and alien. Although without taking anything away, you should probably also never discount the fact that blood does look particularly good against snow. — Mark Billingham

I always joke that I'm a British actress trying to break into Scandinavian TV. — MyAnna Buring

She's really married?" Tallow said to Bat.
"Yeah. Talia's like this Scandinavian Amazon who can break rocks with her boobs. She could fit Scarly in her armpit. Sometimes I think she likes Scarly just because she was the most portable lesbian available. — Warren Ellis

There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass movement the experiment was made on a vast scale and with a heterogeneous population. Such was the case in the rise of Christianity and Islam, and in the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions. The promising communal settlements in the small state of Israel and the successful programs of socialization in the small Scandinavian states indicate perhaps that when the attempt to realize an ideal society is undertaken by a small nation with a more or less homogeneous population it can proceed and succeed in an atmosphere which is neither hectic nor coercive. — Eric Hoffer

My favourite shows of the year are House of Cards, the Scandinavian versions of The Killing and The Bridge, and my guilty pleasure is everything MMA. Ultimate Fighter is amazing. — Ricky Gervais

I usually get up not before 9. I have a huge library - I'm a big fan of Scandinavian crime fiction - so I'll usually take a book and go off to one of my favorite bistros for a cappuccino or espresso or maybe I'll have some lovely smoked salmon for breakfast. — Anthony Geary

I suspect most self-described 18-year-old Scandinavian women named Inga who collect and wear string bikinis are, in reality, more likely to be middle-aged, pot-bellied guys named Lou who collect and wear string cheese. — Pat Sajak

A dash derives from "to dash," to shatter, strike violently, to throw suddenly or violently, hence to throw carelessly in or on, hence to write carelessly or suddenly, to add or insert suddenly or carelessly to or in the page. "To dash" comes from Middle English daschen, itself probably from Scandinavian-compare Danish daske, to beat, to strike. Ultimately the word is-rather obviously-echoic. — Eric Partridge

Shetland's influences are far more Scandinavian than Celtic. — Ann Cleeves

AK 47, is perfect copy, yes? Every detail. Like real thing. Yes. Kalashnikov. Your boy, he be happy for Uncle Sante, no?"
"I'm sorry, Sante. It's really nice of you, but I don't want Sofus playing with guns."
Conversation between George Hanson and Sante
In The Shadow of Sadd — Steen Langstrup

Last year, the Assembly of the League, as a result of the initiative taken by the Scandinavian nations, further limited and clarified all the provisions of the clause prescribing the duty of states to participate in sanctions. — Hjalmar Branting

But if I were asked to pick one constant, one quality that seems dependable, immutable, endlessly available, I'd say that it was intensity. For nothing in Sicily seems withheld, done half way, restrained or suppressed. There's nothing to correspond to say, the ironic, the cerebral remove at which a Frenchman might consider an idea or a question, or the Scandinavian distrust of the sloppy, emotive response. — Francine Prose

My father's grandparents came from Norway and settled in the Scandinavian bastion of Minnesota. As a little girl in Tempe, Arizona, I daydreamed about picking cloudberries by a fjord in a fresh Nordic wind. — Kate Christensen