Stieg Larsson · 465 pages
Rating: (2.1M votes)
“What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.”
“Friendship- my definition- is built on two things. Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble.”
“Everyone has secrets. It's just a matter of finding out what they are.”
“Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love!”
“I’ve had many enemies over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never engage in a fight you’re sure to lose. On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back.”
“Keep in mind that I'm crazy, won't you?”
“Armageddon was yesterday, today we have a serious problem.”
“I can be a regular bitch. Just try me.”
“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.”
“Impulsive actions led to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences.”
“It doesn't matter how good the enemy's weapons are. If he can't see you, he can't hit you. Cover, cover, cover. Make sure you're never exposed.”
“No, I don't believe in God, but I respect the fact that you do. Everyone has to have something to believe in.”
“We need to have a talk on the subject of what's yours and what's mine.”
“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.”
“It did no good to cry, she had learned that early on. She had also learned that every time she tried to make someone aware of something in her life, the situation just got worse. Consequently it was up to her to solve her problems by herself, using whatever methods she deemed necessary.”
“What do you need me for? Salander's greatest fear, which was so huge and so black that it was of phobic proportions, was that people would laugh at her feelings. And all of a sudden all her carefully constructed self-confidence seemed to crumble.”
“One of them is that a bastard is always a bastard and if I can hurt a bastard by digging up shit about him, then he deserves it.”
“In the evening he went to the cinema to see "The Lord of the Rings", which he had never before had time to see. He thought that orcs, unlike human beings, were simple and uncomplicated creatures.”
“She's married. I'm more a friend and occasional lover.”
“I am a rapist and a sadistic pig,' if you get that tattoo removed I will carve it into your forehead, do you understand?”
“Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.”
“Capitalists' wet dreams is to be involved in charity.”
“...you have no idea how mentally handicapped I could be if push comes to shove.”
“Her absence had felt like torture--almost a form of personal punishment. He had nobody to discuss his feelings with, and for the first time he realised with appalling clarity what a destructive hold she had over him.”
“Isn't it fascinating that Nazis always manage to adopt the word freedom?”
“As a girl, she was a legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status.”
“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.”
“When I find the motherfucker who tortured an innocent cat to death just to send us a warning, I'm going to clobber him with a baseball bat”
“Hey, you fucking creep, in this shithole! I've got a monopoly on that one.”
“The media have the ability to attract the craziest people to call in perfectly absurd tips. Every newsroom in the world gets updates from UFOlogists, graphologists, scientologists, paranoiacs, and every sort of conspiracy theorist.”
“If they were of any quality or calibre, then they would ascend by their own virtues. Not if there was no structure that they could possibly climb. Not if all the structure that exists was designed to disenfranchise them. Portia,”
“He wasn’t so frightening, for a Voidbringer. He must have been like … the Voidbringer all the other ones made fun of for wearing silly hats. The one that would correct all the others, and explain which fork they had to use when they sat down to consume human souls.”
“when Melanchthon recalled it, although, as we have said, he was not yet in Wittenberg when it happened, and was really only recounting the recollections of others who had been there. So when he did, he was speaking in the way so many of us do when remembering things: we aren’t telling an untruth but conflating things in a way that is not perfectly and literally accurate, specifically to make a larger point, and, as good fiction does, to tell a greater truth.”
“This time, his bear stayed quiet, finally getting with the “sneaky like a cat” program. Today”
“Good that you ask -- you should always ask, always have doubts.”
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