Maj Sjöwall > Quotes

“This is a foul thing that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. No firearms should exist. The fact that they are still made and that all sorts of people have them lying about in drawers or carry them around in the street just shows that the whole system is perverted and crazy. Some bastard makes a fat profit by making and selling arms, just the way other people make a fat profit on factories that make narcotics and deadly pills. Do you get it?”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Laughing Policeman

“Rather free than rich”
― Maj Sjöwall

“The very idea of militia comprises a far greater danger to society than any single criminal or gang. It paves the way for lynch mentality and arbitrary administration of justice. It throws the protective mechanism of society out of gear.”
― Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

“Of course I acted in school plays but mostly as angels or mushrooms.”
― Maj Sjöwall, Roseanna

“Throughout the film the reporter kept up a ceaseless commentary in that eager, exalted tone that only American news reporters seem to achieve. It was as if he had - with enormous pleasure - just witnessed the end of the world.”
― Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, The Terrorists

“January 7 arrived and looked like January 7. The streets were full of gray, frozen people without money.”
― Maj Sjöwall, Roseanna

“The sky was high and clear and the cool morning air held an omen of autumn”
― Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

“Det ni har gjort är oförsvarligt. Själva milistanken utgör en långt större samhällsfara än någon enskild brottsling eller någon förbrytarliga. Den banar väg för lynchmentalitet och godtycklig rättsskipning. Den sätter samhällets skyddsmekanism ur funktion.”
― Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö

“Mass murders seem to be an American”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Laughing Policeman

“The highway authorities clearly did not think it worth their while wasting road salt on this useless bit of roadway.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Fire Engine That Disappeared

“But hadn’t it always been generally accepted that a policeman’s lot was riskier and tougher and less well paid than any other? The answer was painfully simple. Yes, but only because no other professional group suffered from such role fixation or dramatized its daily life to the same degree as did the police.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Abominable Man

“Drug-taking among young people was caused by a catastrophic philosophy which had been provoked by the prevailing system. Consequently society should be duty bound to produce an effective counterargument. One that was not based on smugness and more police officers.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Man on the Balcony

“the force it takes to pull a trigger is out of all proportion to the force of the bullet that does the killing.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Abominable Man

“After five years of marriage their idea of a really pleasant evening was to be at home, alone, help each other make a good dinner and then sit for a long time and eat and drink and talk.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Abominable Man

“Recently—no; for as long as I can remember, large and powerful nations within the capitalist bloc have been ruled by people who according to accepted legal norms are simply criminals, who from a lust for power and financial gain have led their peoples into an abyss of egoism, self-indulgence and a view of life based entirely on materialism and ruthlessness toward their fellow human beings. Only in very few cases are such politicians punished, but the punishments are token and the guilty persons’ successors are guided by the same motives.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Terrorists

“Η ουσία ήταν όμως να βοηθήσουν την τύχη, να πλέξουν όσο πιο πυκνά μπορούσαν το δίχτυ των περιστάσεων [...]”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Man on the Balcony

“The police car bellowed through the night. The tail lights of the car in front came closer. All around them, but especially to the right, lay Stockholm with its hundreds of thousands of glittering lights reflecting in dark bays and inlets. Church spires stood silhouetted against a starry sky. The moon was out. “Now we’ve got the son”
― Maj Sjöwall, Cop Killer

“Both telephone numbers for the taxi companies were busy and after he had dismissed the thought of getting hold of a radio car,”
― Maj Sjöwall, Roseanna

“Martin Beck was wide awake as soon as he opened his eyes.”
― Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, Cop Killer

“Kollberg fielded the rest of the questions, which were uninteresting and farfetched and to which he gave uninteresting and farfetched answers.”
― Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, Cop Killer

“No human being, particularly a young, attractive woman, is so alone that there is no one to miss her when she disappears.”
― Maj Sjöwall

“Behind its spectacular topographical façade and under its polished, semi-fashionable surface, Stockholm had become an asphalt jungle, where drug addiction and sexual perversion ran more rampant than ever. Unscrupulous profiteers could make enormous profits quite legally on pornography of the smuttiest kind. Professional criminals became not only more numerous but also better organized. An impoverished proletariat was also being created, especially among the elderly. Inflation had given rise to one of the highest costs of living in the world, and the latest surveys showed that many pensioners had to live on dog and cat food in order to make ends meet. The fact that juvenile delinquency and alcoholism (which had always been a problem) continued to increase surprised no one but those with responsible positions in the Civil Service and at the Cabinet level. Stockholm.”
― Maj Sjöwall, Murder at the Savoy

“Bertil Mard could be jealous of the cat,' Allwright said, and laughed experimentally. 'And so, sure enough, they didn't have a cat”
― Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, Cop Killer

“His name was apparently Charles Penrose and the record was called The Adventures of the Laughing Policeman.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Laughing Policeman

“El hombre no dijo nada.”
― Maj Sjöwall, Roseanna

“that you have three of the most important virtues a policeman can have,” he thought. “You are stubborn and logical, and completely calm.”
― Maj Sjöwall, Roseanna

“There are lots of good cops around. Dumb guys who are good cops. Inflexible, limited, tough, self-satisfied types who are all good cops. It would be better if there were a few more good guys who were cops.” His”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Fire Engine That Disappeared

“Smug swine who think only of their money and their houses and their families and their so-called status. Who think they can order others about merely because they happen to be better off. There are thousands of such people and most of them are not so stupid that they strangle Portuguese whores. And that’s why we never get at them. We only see their victims.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Laughing Policeman

“There was a Swedish team that had even managed to torpedo the myth of the English bobby and reduce it to its proper proportions, namely, to the fact that the English police are not armed and therefore don’t provoke violence to the same degree as certain others. Even in Denmark responsible authorities had managed to grasp this fact, and only in exceptional situations were policemen permitted to sign out weapons.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Abominable Man

“The corpulent, impotent Petrus casts pubescent girls in skin flicks so low-budget sex, from film to film, takes place “on the same old couch, which occasionally changed covers.”
― Maj Sjöwall, The Terrorists