Stieg Larsson

“She wondered what she thought of herself, and came to the realization that she felt mostly indifference towards her entire life.”

“Armageddon was yesterday, today we have a serious problem.”

“She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.”

“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.”

“He felt that he had to find Salander and hold her close. She would probably bite him if he tried.”

“Don’t ever fight with Lisbeth Salander. Her attitude towards the rest of the world is that if someone threatens her with a gun, she’ll get a bigger gun.”

“Normally seven minutes of another person's company was enough to give her a headache so she set things up to live as a recluse. She was perfectly content as long as people left her in peace. Unfortunately society was not very smart or understanding.”

“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.”

“Blomkvist had indeed had many brief relationships. He knew he was reasonably good-looking, but he had never considered himself exceptionally attractive. But he had often been told that he had something that made women interested in him . . .that he radiated self-confidence and security at the same time, that he had the ability to make women feel at ease. Going to bed with him was not threatening or complicated, but it might be erotically enjoyable. And that, according to Blomkvist, was as it should be.”

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

“Keep in mind that I'm crazy, won't you?”

“She had stared at him for a whole minute and decided that she did not have a grain of feeling left, because it would have been the same as bleeding to death. Fuck You.”

“She was afraid that it was a moral issue, and that was one of his weaknesses. He was Salander’s friend. She knew her brother. She knew that he was loyal to the point of foolhardiness once he had made someone a friend, even if the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also knew that he could accept any number of idiocies from his friends, but that there was a boundary and it could not be infringed. Where exactly this boundary was seemed to vary from one person to another, but she knew he had broken completely with people who had previously been close friends because they had done something that he regarded as beyond the pale. And he was inflexible. The break was for ever.”

“13NOTESShe hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more than electrons and words. In real life, standing on her doorstep, he was still fucking attractive. And he knew her secrets just as she knew all of his. She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings. He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year. She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.”

“No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on something else, to pass the time and to distract her from the situation she was in, the fear came trickling out. It hovered like a cloud of gas around her, threatening to penetrate her pores and poison her.”

“Cortez looked like someone newly in love, the way only twenty-four-year-olds can look.”

“It was completely impossible to box with her. She had only one style, which we called Terminator Mode. She would try to nail her opponent, and it didn’t matter if it was just a warm-up of friendly sparring.”

“Everyone has secrets. It's just a matter of finding out what they are.”

“I don't know how much you understand about what is happening outside your locked room, but strangely enough (despite your personality), you have a number of loyal idiots working on your behalf. I have already established an elite body called The Knights of the Idiotic Table. We will be holding an annual dinner at which we'll have fun talking crap about you. (No, you're not invited).”

“We need to have a talk on the subject of what's yours and what's mine.”

“I don't give a damn what you do with your money. Just sign here that you received it and you can get drunk in peace.”

“I am a rapist and a sadistic pig,' if you get that tattoo removed I will carve it into your forehead, do you understand?”

“When she came to her senses again she cut off all contact with him. It had not been easy, but she had steeled herself. The last time she saw him she was standing on a platform in the tunnelbana at Gamla Stan and he was sitting in the train on his way downtown. She had stared at him for a whole minute and decided that she did not have a grain of feeling left, because it would have been the same as bleeding to death. Fuck you.”

“There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer.”

“She's married. I'm more a friend and occasional lover.”

“Stark raving mad.”

“Kalle Fucking Blomkvist”

“One of them is that a bastard is always a bastard and if I can hurt a bastard by digging up shit about him, then he deserves it.”

“Consider this a fair warning.”

“Nobody can avoid falling in love. They might want to deny it, but friendship is probably the most common form of love.”

“I can be a regular bitch. Just try me.”

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

“Salander was the woman who hated men who hate women.”

“Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.”

“When all the media assertions were put together, the police appeared to be hunting for a psychotic lesbian who had joined a cult of Satanists that propagandized for S&M sex and hated society in general and men in particular. Because Salander had been abroad for the past year, there might be international connections too.”

“The media have the ability to attract the craziest people to call in perfectly absurd tips. Every newsroom in the world gets updates from UFOlogists, graphologists, scientologists, paranoiacs, and every sort of conspiracy theorist.”

“There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.”

“Wennerström was devoting himself to fraud that was so extensive it was no longer merely criminal–it was business.”

“It proved once again the theory that no security system is a match for a stupid employee.”

“In the evening he went to the cinema to see "The Lord of the Rings", which he had never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were simple and uncomplicated creatures.”

“This is so much money that it scares the shit out of me. I don't know how to handle it. I don't know the purpose of the company besides making more money. What's all the money going to be used for?”

“The whole organization seemed to be in free fall, indulging in a collective fantasy in which experienced colleagues refused to admit that their every movement, every decision that was made and implemented, only led them one step closer to the abyss.”

“Candy within reach and then I have to go on a diet.”

“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.”

“Zalachenko...you're just an ordinary asshole who hates women.”

“Salander's fingers emerged like something dead from beneath the earth. Had there been any human watching, he would probably have reacted like the fox. He was gone like a shot.”

“Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination - and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.”