Sometimes they were together so often that it felt as though they really were a couple; sometimes weeks and months would go by before they saw each other. But even as alcoholics are drawn to the state liquor store after a stint on the wagon, they always came back to each other.

Don't call me crazy.I'm a survivor. I do what I have to do to survive.

Her absence had felt like torture--almost a form of personal punishment. He had nobody to discuss his feelings with, and for the first time he realised with appalling clarity what a destructive hold she had over him.

I believe that everyone has it in them to kill another person. In desperation, or hatred, or at least to defend themselves.

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.

Your job description as a journalist is to question and scrutinize critically-neve r to repeat claims uncritically, no matter how highly placed the sources in the bureaucracy. Don't ever forget that. You're a damn good writer, but that talent is completely worthless if you forget your job description.

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.