Quotes from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Don’t ever fight with Lisbeth Salander. Her attitude towards the rest of the world is that if someone threatens her with a gun, she’ll get a bigger gun.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“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, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“When she came to her senses again she cut off all contact with him. It had not been easy, but she had steeled herself. The last time she saw him she was standing on a platform in the tunnelbana at Gamla Stan and he was sitting in the train on his way downtown. She had stared at him for a whole minute and decided that she did not have a grain of feeling left, because it would have been the same as bleeding to death. Fuck you.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Salander was the woman who hated men who hate women.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Dear Government... I'm going to have a serious talk with you if I ever find anyone to talk to.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“She had stared at him for a whole minute and decided that she did not have a grain of feeling left, because it would have been the same as bleeding to death. Fuck You.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“He felt that he had to find Salander and hold her close.

She would probably bite him if he tried.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Men could be as big as a house and made of granite, but they all had balls in the same place.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“I believe that everyone has it in them to kill another person. In desperation, or hatred, or at least to defend themselves.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“It proved once again the theory that no security system is a match for a stupid employee.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Those pointless equations, to which no solution exists, are called absurdities.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“their relationship was built on friendship, and in matters of friendship he was boundlessly loyal. It was a relationship that would survive the harshest test.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“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, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“I am what I am,' Salander said 'I ran away from everything and everybody. I should have said goodbye.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“It was completely impossible to box with her. She had only one style, which we called Terminator Mode. She would try to nail her opponent, and it didn’t matter if it was just a warm-up of friendly sparring.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“Zalachenko...you're just an ordinary asshole who hates women.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“She had discovered that the most effective method of keeping the fear at bay was to fantasize about something that gave her a feeling of strength. She closed her eyes and conjured up the smell of gasoline.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“She saw him drenched with gasoline. She could actually feel the box of matches in her hand.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“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, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“When all the media assertions were put together, the police appeared to be hunting for a psychotic lesbian who had joined a cult of Satanists that propagandized for S&M sex and hated society in general and men in particular. Because Salander had been abroad for the past year, there might be international connections too.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“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, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

“A journalist finds out things by asking questions of people who know.”
― Stieg Larsson, quote from The Girl Who Played with Fire

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“Wander with me through one mood of the myriad moods of sadness into which one is plunged by John Barleycorn. I ride out over my beautiful ranch. Between my legs is a beautiful horse. The air is wine. The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalised, organic. I move, I have the power of movement, I command movement of the live thing I bestride. I am possessed with the pomps of being, and know proud passions and inspirations. I have ten thousand august connotations. I am a king in the kingdom of sense, and trample the face of the uncomplaining dust.... And yet, with jaundiced eye I gaze upon all the beauty and wonder about me, and with jaundiced brain consider the pitiful figure I cut in this world that endured so long without me and that will again endure without me. I remember the men who broke their hearts and their backs over this stubborn soil that now belongs to me. As if anything imperishable could belong to the perishable! These men passed. I, too, shall pass. These men toiled, and cleared, and planted, gazed with aching eyes, while they rested their labour-stiffened bodies on these same sunrises and sunsets, at the autumn glory of the grape, and at the fog-wisps stealing across the mountain. And they are gone. And I know that I, too, shall some day, and soon, be gone.”
― Jack London, quote from John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs

“Being nothing felt quite the same as being something. Maybe she had never been something at all.”
― Claire Legrand, quote from The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

“August passed like a dancer, graceful and sweating.”
― Laura London, quote from The Windflower

“My father's hand found the door locked. His calls to my mother went unanswered. He beat with his fists and called out her name, again and again, tears burning from his eyes. By the time I had come in the front door, the cake in my arms, he had broken his way in and discovered she was dead.”
― Niall Williams, quote from Four Letters of Love

“But I can’t overstate God’s promise: “Unload all your worries onto him, since he is looking after you” (1 Pet. 5:7 JB).”
― Max Lucado, quote from Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.