Quotes About Stieg Larsson

The pace of Swedish crime fiction is slower - Stieg Larsson's the exception. And I think we use the environment more.

Part of the brilliance of Stieg Larsson's books is that they are so complex, so many different facets coming together.

Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.

What Stieg Larsson was up to - it was the Swedish guilt over World War II. All of our neighbors had the most terrible experiences with the bad forces, but Sweden didn't. I think we use the thrillers in a different way. We never write a thriller like 'Who is the murderer?' The big question in most of our thrillers is... 'Why?'

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?

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 have tried to create main characters who are drastically different from the types who generally appear in crime novels. Mikael Blomkvist, for instance, doesn't have ulcers or booze problems or an anxiety complex. He doesn't listen to operas, nor does he have an oddball hobby such as making model airplanes.

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

In ordinary detective novels you never see the consequences of what happens in a story in the next book. That you do in mine.

I think the power of Stieg Larsson's stories is that he has the guts to show the hidden spots in the side of Sweden. That gave us a push to say that for the first time. That they can't have with the American version.