“Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?”

“Theexperience he'd gained during his years in the police forcehad given him this unambiguous answer: there are nomurderers. Only ordinary people who commit murder”

“The Vikings did not believe in leaving their futures to the fates, but in carving their own fates . It was believed the gods would reward those who went forth valiantly to conquer and to gain. Vikings gave no account to meekness, or suffering patience. They fought for what they wanted. Defeat held no honor.”

“She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if…the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who made it, as if the murderer who killed a child were greater than the mother who had given it birth.”

“...Raleigh was later to write, after a duel the hangman was the one who bestowed the garland on the victor.”

“It could have been a thief or a murderer. I considered crying out. A thief would run away, but a murderer would murder me. On the other hand, the murderer would probably murder me if I didn't too. That was his whole thing.”