When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.

Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.

As a writer, I am an intellectual. I believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment, I believe in the written word, in dialogue and in truth. I hate lies more than anything else. Most of the time I react by writing.

Each person searches for the most beautiful jump which will be the final before leaving this world.

When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.

Sweden is still a very peaceful country to live in. I think that people in Britain have created this mythology about Sweden, that it's a perfect democratic society full of erotically charged girls.

Africa was the most exotic place I could conceive of - the end of the world - and I knew I would go there one day.