I like to think that I get better and better as a writer, but it seems pretty easy to me to slip on disguises of various people.

If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.

Why not rise from the grave and terrorize a little instead of staying buried and dead in the cemetery?

One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

I decided that it might be interesting to have terrible things happen to orphans over and over again.

Beef. Yes. Roast beef. It's the Swedish term for beef that is roasted.

They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.