We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent.

Sweden is a small country, and a Swedish writer can barely make a living as an author. We were able to quit our jobs as journalists only after we had been translated into, among others, German.

Yes, think what a lot of nonsense one can figure out with plenty of time. Brooding is the mother of ineffectiveness.

When I was 11, I realised that I did not have to live the life my mother had: school, marriage, children, apartment, summer house.

People read more mysteries than they do political pamphlets.

Death is never very pretty.

We always had money problems. Sometimes I would lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent.