Stieg Larsson quotes:

Every year Swedish society produces a new generation of threatened women who can testify to the lack of legal rights and the lukewarm interest shown by the police and other authorities.

I have tried to create main characters who are drastically different from the types who generally appear in crime novels. Mikael Blomkvist, for instance, doesn't have ulcers or booze problems or an anxiety complex. He doesn't listen to operas, nor does he have an oddball hobby such as making model airplanes.

In ordinary detective novels you never see the consequences of what happens in a story in the next book. That you do in mine.

Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.

I've read crime fiction all my life. A thing that's bothered me about crime fiction is that it's generally about one or two people, but there's not much about society. I want to get away from that particular pattern: a lead, a supporting role and backdrop characters.

When this is all over I'm going to found an association called 'The Knights of the Idiotic Table' and its purpose will be to arrange an annual dinner where we tell stories about Lisbeth Salander. You're all members."

Some of the writers I've praised are Sara Paretsky, Val McDermid, Elisabeth George and Minette Walters. Strangely enough, almost all are women.

I am not altogether confident of my ability to put my thoughts into words: My texts are usually better after an editor has hacked away at them, and I am used to both editing and being edited. Which is to say that I am not oversensitive in such matters.

In many respects I have gone out of my way to avoid the usual approach adopted in crime novels. I have used some techniques that are normally outlawed - the presentation of Mikael Blomkvist, for instance, is based exclusively on the personal case study made by Lisbeth Salander.

I have been threatened occasionally. But that happens to everybody who is writing this kind of things. Threats will come without fail. It might happen to the most 'innocent' texts. If it gets too much we call the police.

In real life, people are integrated into society. That's what happens in my books as well. Minor characters don't just walk in and spout lines, they interact and have an effect on the events. It's not an isolated universe.

Salander leaned back against the pillow and followed the conversation with a smile. She wondered why she, who had such difficulty talking about herself with people of flesh and blood, could blithely reveal her most intimate secrets to a bunch of completely unknown freaks on the Internet.

She had taken many more punches to both body and soul than anyone should ever have to endure. But she had been able to rebel every time.

History is reticent about women who were common soldiers, who bore arms, belonged to regiments, and took part in battles on the same terms as men, though hardly a war has been waged without women soldiers in the ranks.

Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love!

What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.

I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside.

To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty.

From a purely physical standpoint she didn't have a chance, but her attitude was that death was better than capitulation.

Crime stories are, as you know, one of the most popular forms of entertainment that exist. If you then try to have something to say... that I have, of course.

What irritated her most was that they kept brushing off her arguments with patronizing smiles, making her feel like a teenager being quizzed on her homework. Without actually uttering a single inappropriate word, they displayed towards her an attitude that was so antediluvian it was almost comical. You shouldn't worry your pretty head over complex matters, little girl."

But she wished she had had the guts to go up to him and say hello. Or possibly break his legs, she wasn't sure which.

Friendship- my definition- is built on two things. Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble.

I abhor crime novels in which the main character can behave however he or she pleases, or do things that normal people do not do, without those actions having social consequences.