Stieg Larsson · 563 pages
Rating: (554.2K votes)
“Nobody can avoid falling in love. They might want to deny it, but friendship is probably the most common form of love.”
“I'm not going to apologize for the way I've led my life.”
“I'm unhappy. I don't want to fall in love with you. It'll hurt far too much when it's over”
“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”
“But if you want to win, you're going to have to fight.”
“If love is liking someone an awful lot, then I suppose I'm in love with several people.”
“What an excellent tool the internet is for freaks.”
“I don't know how much you understand about what is happening outside your locked room, but strangely enough (despite your personality), you have a number of loyal idiots working on your behalf. I have already established an elite body called The Knights of the Idiotic Table. We will be holding an annual dinner at which we'll have fun talking crap about you. (No, you're not invited).”
“When their love was not reciprocated, it could quickly turn to violent hatred.”
“It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding”
“I don't know if I want a steady relationship, but I'm terrified of losing you.”
“Don't call me crazy.I'm a survivor. I do what I have to do to survive.”
“Salander leaned back against the pillow and followed the conversation with a smile. She wondered why she, who had such difficulty talking about herself with people of flesh and blood, could blithely reveal her most intimate secrets to a bunch of completely unknown freaks on the Internet.”
“She wondered what she thought of herself, and came to the realization that she felt mostly indifference towards her entire life.”
“And I guess that in some way I'm falling for you because you are who you are. It's easy to sleep with you because there's no bullshit and you make me feel safe. But this all started because I gave in to a crazy impulse. It doesn't happen very often, and I hadn't planned it.”
“Men who just call to say hello generally have ulterior motives.”
“13
NOTES
She hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more than electrons and words. In real life, standing on her doorstep, he was still fucking attractive. And he knew her secrets just as she knew all of his. She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings. He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year. She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.”
“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.”
“I don't give a damn what you do with your money. Just sign here that you received it and you can get drunk in peace.”
“Somehow she managed to survive and dig herself out and—“
“And somehow get back to the farm and swing an axe into Zalachenko’s skull,” Blomkvist finished for him. “She can be a moody bitch.”
“I don't want any inheritance from my father. Do whatever the hell you want with it."
"Wrong. You can do what you want with the inheritance. My job is to see to it that you have the opportunity to do so."
"I don't want a single ore from that pig."
"Then give the money to the Greenpeace or something."
"I don't give a shit about whales.”
“I have already established an elite body called The Knights of the Idiotic Table. We will be holding an annual dinner at which we'll have fun talking crap about you. No, you're not invited.”
“Only a woman who had killed a man in battle was allowed to give up her virginity.”
“You were difficult enough to catch,” Faste said. Salander gave him a long look, satisfied herself that he was an idiot, and decided that she would not waste too many seconds concerning herself with his existence.”
“What irritated her most was that they kept brushing off her arguments with patronizing smiles, making her feel like a teenager being quizzed on her homework. Without actually uttering a single inappropriate word, they displayed towards her an attitude that was so antediluvian it was almost comical. You shouldn't worry your pretty head over complex matters, little girl.”
“I don't think I'm the type who falls in love. She was a friend. And we had good sex.”
“She was afraid that it was a moral issue, and that was one of his weaknesses. He was Salander’s friend. She knew her brother. She knew that he was loyal to the point of foolhardiness once he had made someone a friend, even if the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also the friend was impossible and obviously flawed. She also knew that he could accept any number of idiocies from his friends, but that there was a boundary and it could not be infringed. Where exactly this boundary was seemed to vary from one person to another, but she knew he had broken completely with people who had previously been close friends because they had done something that he regarded as beyond the pale. And he was inflexible. The break was for ever.”
“Then she made up her mind.It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist.It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.”
“As the situation developed, the futility of attempting suicide in the middle of a hospital became apparent.”
“Ambition left to itself, like a Rupert Murdoch, always becomes tedious, its only object the creation of larger and larger empires of control; but a true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place. We find that all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had undertaken the journey.”
“But the thing is,” and with this it’s he who takes a step forward, “the woman who you really are . . . the one who you keep so tightly under wraps, the woman who is only allowed out when she is touched a certain way, made to feel certain things . . . that woman is so damn compelling . . . I can’t seem to turn away.”
“The younger man’s build qualified him as an ectomorph—very”
“Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their action should concern them. They have no conception of the necessity of a well-organized society wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think only of themselves because they have not yet been taught to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it never once flashes across his mind that he has been lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the cries of the individual strung up by the thumbs, when we hear the ominous shot which marks the end of another victim who has thought to break loose, we may be sure that in another instance life has been misunderstood--we may be sure that society has been struggled against until death alone would stop the individual from contention and evil.”
“Annie, no stranger to disappointment, felt the hope break down inside her body and disperse without any lingering effects.”
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