Top 140 Stieg Larsson Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “She considered him to be a good person, possibly with a Practical Pig complex that was sometimes a little too apparent. And he was unbearably naive with regard to certain elementary moral issues. He had an indulgent and forgiving personality that looked for explanations and excuses for the way people behaved, and he would never get it that the raptors of the world only understood only one language. She almost felt awkwardly protective whenever she thought of him.”

— Stieg Larsson

52. “Keep in mind that I’m crazy, won’t you?”

— Stieg Larsson

53. “Hey, toy boy. It’s only 3:00, and I want to be properly entertained before dinner.”

— Stieg Larsson

54. “Lisbeth Salander era la mujer que odiaba a los hombres que odiaban a las mujeres.”

— Stieg Larsson

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

— Stieg Larsson

56. “But she wished she had had the guts to go up to him and say hello. Or possibly break his legs, she wasn’t sure which.”

— Stieg Larsson

57. “Only a woman who had killed a man in battle was allowed to give up her virginity.”

— Stieg Larsson

58. “She went out on the balcony and leaned.”

— Stieg Larsson

59. “This is how it goes. We are born. We live. We grow old. We die. He had played his part. All that remained was the disintegration.”

— Stieg Larsson

60. “Normally seven minutes of another person’s company was enough to give her a headache so she set things up to live as a recluse. She was perfectly content as long as people left her in peace. Unfortunately society was not very smart or understanding.”

— Stieg Larsson

61. “She cursed her gender. Nobody would have dared attack her if she had been a man.”

— Stieg Larsson

62. “Men could be as big as a house and made of granite, but they all had balls in the same place.”

— Stieg Larsson

63. “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.”

— Stieg Larsson

64. “Si amor significa querer mucho a alguien, entonces supongo que estoy enamorado de varias personas.”

— Stieg Larsson

65. “I’m not going to apologize for the way I’ve led my life.”

— Stieg Larsson

66. “Faste knew better than to argue with a doctor, since they were the closest things to God’s representatives here on Earth.”

— Stieg Larsson

67. “I hate this society where we’re watched over all the time. I’ve had enough of Big Brother and the authorities in my life.”

— Stieg Larsson

68. “Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love and I had few reasons to defend Harald.”

— Stieg Larsson

69. “Men who just call to say hello generally have ulterior motives.”

— Stieg Larsson

70. “He felt that he had to find Salander and hold her close. She would probably bite him if he tried.”

— Stieg Larsson

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

— Stieg Larsson

72. “She saw him drenched with gasoline. She could actually feel the box of matches in her hand.”

— Stieg Larsson

73. “There was a difference, besides, between Catholicism and Judaism. He went to the synagogue when he needed company and fellowship with other people. Catholics went to church to seek peace in the presence of God. The church invited silence and visitors would always be left to themselves.”

— Stieg Larsson

74. “He often wondered whether it were possible to be more possessed by desire for any other woman. The fact was that they functioned well together, and they had a connection as addictive as heroin.”

— Stieg Larsson

75. “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.”

— Stieg Larsson

76. “She wondered what she thought of herself, and came to the realization that she felt mostly indifference towards her entire life.”

— Stieg Larsson

77. “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.”

— Stieg Larsson

78. “When this is all over I’m going to found an association called ‘The Knights of the Idiotic Table’ and its purpose will be to arrange an annual dinner where we tell stories about Lisbeth Salander. You’re all members.”

— Stieg Larsson

79. “I am not altogether confident of my ability to put my thoughts into words: My texts are usually better after an editor has hacked away at them, and I am used to both editing and being edited. Which is to say that I am not oversensitive in such matters.”

— Stieg Larsson

80. “Blomkvist had kept the promise he’d made in December to stop visiting Lundagatan in the vain hope that Salander might appear.”

— Stieg Larsson

81. “When their love was not reciprocated, it could quickly turn to violent hatred.”

— Stieg Larsson

82. “Take “no” as an encouragement to redouble his efforts, so it was easier to say “yes” right away.”

— Stieg Larsson

83. “Her voice was as rough as sandpaper. As long as Blomkvist lived, he would never forget her face as she went on the attack. Her teeth were bared like a beast of prey. Her eyes were glittering, black as coal. She moved with the lightning speed of a tarantula and seemed totally focus on her prey as she swung the club again, striking Martin in the ribs.”

— Stieg Larsson

84. “I’m a fast writer, and crime novels are easy to do. It’s much harder to write a 1,000 word article, where everything has to be 100 per cent correct.”

— Stieg Larsson

85. “Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination – and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.”

— Stieg Larsson

86. “No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on something else, to pass the time and to distract her from the situation she was in, the fear came trickling out. It hovered like a cloud of gas around her, threatening to penetrate her pores and poison her.”

— Stieg Larsson

87. “That was a basic rule for survival. Don’t lift a finger for a lost cause.”

— Stieg Larsson

88. “What an excellent tool the internet is for freaks.”

— Stieg Larsson

89. “I am what I am,′ Salander said ‘I ran away from everything and everybody. I should have said goodbye.”

— Stieg Larsson

90. “From a purely physical standpoint she didn’t have a chance, but her attitude was that death was better than capitulation.”

— Stieg Larsson

91. “History is reticent about women who were common soldiers, who bore arms, belonged to regiments, and took part in battles on the same terms as men, though hardly a war has been waged without women soldiers in the ranks.”

— Stieg Larsson

92. “He was a cocky devil. Lisbeth liked cocky devils, just as she detested pompous jerks. There was only a subtle difference.”

— Stieg Larsson

93. “His attitude had always been that if a woman clearly indicated that she did not want anything more to do with him, he would go on his way. Not respecting such a message would in his eyes, show a lack of respect for her.”

— Stieg Larsson

94. “It did no good to cry, she had learned that early on.”

— Stieg Larsson

95. “He seemed happy, and she too felt strangely content with life.”

— Stieg Larsson

96. “I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.”

— Stieg Larsson

97. “I don’t know if I want a steady relationship, but I’m terrified of losing you.”

— Stieg Larsson

98. “She did not just seem difficult – in his eyes she was the very quintessence of difficult.”

— Stieg Larsson

99. “How could you be so idiotic as to decide to begin liquidating individuals in Sweden just as we saw happen in Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship?”

— Stieg Larsson

100. “He was not in love with her – they were about as unlike as two people could possibly be – but he was very fond of her and really missed her, as exasperating as she sometimes was.”

— Stieg Larsson