Quotes from David Lagercrantz

I've always been interested in people who think out of their time, and I have this passion, actually, for science. I'm just so enormously interested in how, when you think of these revolutionary ideas, other people get threatened, especially if you are different.

I have this reporter's temperament still in me - I thrive under pressure.

The beautiful thing is I have sort of grown up. I don't care if I'm highbrow or not anymore.

I met a lot of hackers, and some of them were very arrogant. They thought I was stupid because I couldn't follow what they were talking about. But then I met this great guy whom companies hire to find their security holes, and he was very good about explaining so I could understand.

If you have an extreme character, you need normal characters to contrast them. Sherlock Holmes certainly needed a Dr. Watson. And Pippi Longstocking, who supposedly inspired Lisbeth Salander, needed Tommy and Annika, the normal middle-class neighbors.

All great characters, great icons, in literature are a bit of a riddle, and that's the reason we go back to them over and over.

I was so obsessed by Lisbeth Salander and all the characters, but of course if you're going to write a crime novel worthy of Stieg Larsson, you need a plot, don't you?

Alan Turing is such an amazing, tragic story.

We must fight intolerance, racism and the far-Right.

I'm always interested in talented or odd people, and my whole life I've written about geniuses who society has treated badly and they strike back - or not.

I said from the start I had to be trustful of the Millennium universe. It was not going to be a Stieg Larsson book, but my interpretation of his iconic characters and universe.

I write best when I sort of collide myself with another man. So I think, I hope, that a combination of me and Stieg Larsson will create something good.

I want to have new challenges and write new crazy books because I think it makes me a better writer to be insecure and try new things.

I'm very bad at violence in real life. I can't stand it. And I'm so fed up with crime novels that have too much violence. I can't really do it. It's unnecessary.

I'm a strange kind of author - I like assignments. I wasn't clever enough to invent an iconic figure like Salander, but she's my kind of girl.

My life as an author has always been about brilliant, odd people.