“But promises based on ignorance always prove disappointing.”

“Assad: 'I have written it just down here.'He Pointed to a number of Arabic symbols that could just as well have meant it was going to snow in the Lofoten Islands in the morning.”

“If you want to know what the camel stole from your kitchen yesterday, then you shouldn;t slit open its stomach. You should stare into its arsehole.”

“Bak stood a moment, as though considering whether the sum total of their shared working life was ending in a minus or a plus.”

“He'd make her work so hard that a job as a cardboard-box presser at the margerine factory would seem like paradise.”

“Assad whistled a few notes of one of his native country's melancholic songs. It sounded as though he was whistling backwards”

“Carl Mørck, am I disturbing you? said a voice at the door, which made his blood boil and turn to ice at the same time. His spinal cord sent five commands through his infrastructure: get rid of the eraser, cover the last line, put away the cigarette, drop the stupid facial expression, close your mouth!”

“But promises based on ignorance always prove disappointing.”

“For a moment Carl tried to picture everything in his mind, and then it happened. Somewhere inside of him, where cause and effect were not weighted against each other, and where logic and explanations never challenged consciousness, in that place where thoughts could live freely and played out against each other - right there in that spot, things fell into place, and he understood how it all fitted together”

“@She is really really so beautiful there,' said Assad.Carl glanced at him. Apparently a woman's appearance was a particularly valuable factor in his assistant's world-view. But Carl agreed with him.”

“Was she pregnant then?' asked Assad. Judging by the number of family members in his photos, it was a feminine condition with which he was quite familiar.”