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.

I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside.

Plague might be a social incompetent, but he was unquestionably a genius.

I am what I am,' Salander said 'I ran away from everything and everybody. I should have said goodbye.

I've read crime fiction all my life. A thing that's bothered me about crime fiction is that it's generally about one or two people, but there's not much about society. I want to get away from that particular pattern: a lead, a supporting role and backdrop characters.

What she had realised was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.

There was a whole army of people who seemed not to have anything better to do than to try to disrupt her life, and , if they were given the opportunity, to correct the way she had chosen to live it.