“‎The game had started. Everybody was assuring everybody else how reliable they were. In fact, nobody trusted anybody but themselves”

“But then an old man was discovered impaled in a ditch, and once again his world had started crumbling away beneath his feet. He wondered how long he could keep this up.”

“in a rash moment he decided to lie his way to the truth. If he wasn't mistaken, Ellen Magnusson had had very little experience with the police. She would assume that they searched for the truth by being honest themselves. She was the one who would lie, not the police.”

“I remembered her once saying that life was like your shoes. You couldn't simply expect or imagine that your shoes would fit perfectly. Shoes that pinched your feet were a fact of life.”

“We don't have time to argue. Nobody has time.”

“We live in an age when the mice are hunting the cats...nobody knows who are the mice and who the cats.”

“Every time Wallander stepped into someone's home, he felt as though he were looking at the front cover of a book that he had just bought”