Best Quotes from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson with Page Numbers

This is how it is to be a criminal, he thought.

He straightened up and tried to smile.

Maybe it was a question of chemistry, but the foundation had been laid there for a lifelong enmity.

I have nothing to add,

It was worth coming down here just to see you with that paper in your hand.

It would take a long time to repair the damage—if indeed it could ever be repaired.

For the foreseeable future, editors would hesitate to publish a story under his byline.

What hurt most was the humiliation.

I can only regret that the court did not come to a different conclusion.

In actual fact, I think there was something damned odd about his story.

He had become fascinated with the security business. It was like war games—to identify threats, develop counter-strategies, and all the time stay one step ahead of the industrial spies, blackmailers and thieves.

She knew the bureaucratic archives inside out. Above all, she had the ability to get under the skin of the person she was investigating.

Everybody could find out credit information or run a check with police records. But Salander had imagination, and she always came back with something different from what he expected.

For Armansky this was a solution that was advantageous to him, the company, and Salander herself.

Everyone deserves a chance.

She had a talent for irritating the other employees.

You know, if you just want an office serf you can get one from the temp agency.

I can handle anything and anyone you want, and if you don’t have any better use for me than sorting post, then you’re an idiot.

What makes you think that? The way you look at me, and the way you don’t look at me.

Between us—yes, there have been times when I have felt attracted to you. I can’t explain it, but that’s the way it is.

"I suppose it’ll pass. But right now it feels as if I’ve got myself a very raw deal."

"We simply have to ride out the storm."

"If you think I intend to let you take the rap all by yourself, then you haven’t learned a damn thing about me in the years we’ve worked together."

"We have to be smarter than that."

"The vital thing is to maintain the magazine’s credibility, to stop the bleeding."

"I need a break, to be honest. I’m burned right out."

"Want some company tonight?"

"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."

"It was the working-class guy and the upper-class girl in a beautiful union."

"As long as you and I trust each other we’ve got a chance."

But life is unfair.

Mikael—if I may call you Mikael?—I won’t lie to you. I’m too old for that.

I understand how strength seeps away.

There are many reasons why the Vanger Corporation is on the ropes today, but one of the key ones is the short-termism and greed of my relatives.

I believe I can talk you into it.

I think you have it, and that’s not flattery.

Forgive me, Herr Vanger, I’ve been here already for twenty minutes.

It’s never good psychology to exaggerate.

You must think I’m stupid.

But I’m sure you didn’t ask me to come here to talk about old times you had with my parents.

The tradition came to an end in the eighties, when Martin simply decreed that all discussions about the business would take place at regular board meetings and by voting. That’s the best decision he ever made.

It was the loathsome annual dinner.

I’ve gone over the events so many times that I think I can account for what happened in every minute of that day—except the most important thing.

It was also the day of the party, with the Children’s Day parade that was arranged by the sports club in Hedestad.

I have to tell the story in chronological order.

The old man looked away from Blomkvist and stared into the darkness outside the window. His voice grew lower and more intimate.

From the outset I hoped that she had run away.

You must understand that a sixteen-year-old from such a protected world, even a very able girl, would hardly even be able to manage on her own.

I had begun to think that someone must have killed her.

It was as if she had dissolved into thin air.

"I refuse to go to my grave without giving it one last try."

"I want to nail the swine who murdered Harriet."

"I’ve devoted more and more of my time to it."

"I don’t believe that."

"If you fail, then it’s God’s will, or—if you don’t believe in Him—it’s fate."

"I want you to examine everything with new eyes."

"I have a large personal fortune; I can spend it any way I want."

"I owe it to Harriet. And I owe it to myself."

"You’ll work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life."

"I can give you Hans-Erik Wennerström. I can prove that he’s a swindler."

"You’re not alone. You’ve got Christer and the rest of the staff behind you."

"I need a break, Erika. I’m not functioning anymore. I’m burned out."

"We’ve spent too much time working our hearts out for that."

"This does not mean I’ve given up on Millennium."

"If we’re going to have the slightest chance against Wennerström, we have to retreat and work out a whole new strategy."

"What I’m afraid of is that Mikael won’t ever come back."

"If you have to, fire him."

"But since you asked for my opinion, there you have it."

"You can’t do that if I’m still on the editorial board."

"People always have secrets. It’s just a matter of finding out what they are."

"You sound like someone who doesn’t much like his brother."

"I find him detestable, and I would have rather he’d stayed in Uppsala, but he owns this house."

"Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love and I had few reasons to defend Harald."

"All I ask is that you do your best. But we must be careful what we say in front of anyone else."

"It’s going to take a couple of weeks to read through the papers. We’ll work on two fronts."

"I suppose you’re aware that I have to spend a couple of months in prison. I don’t know exactly when, but I’m not going to appeal."

"I might add that she’s one of my relatives for whom I have the highest regard."

"If you need to take some time off, feel free to do it, but if I find out that you’re not doing the work, I’ll consider that a breach of contract."

"The best assistance you can offer is to give me Wennerström’s head on a platter right here and now."

"What was clear was that the old patriarch had tackled the job with the systematic approach of an amateur archaeologist—the material was going to fill twenty feet of shelving."

"If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never engage in a fight you’re sure to lose."

"Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back."

"Every action has its consequences."

"What do you want to know?"

"First, he had no possibility of contacting my father for instructions, but on his own initiative he had decided to cut short my visit to Germany and send me home."

"I was staying with him and his family in an elegant apartment in a well-to-do neighbourhood of Hamburg."

"Until now no-one had asked for her opinion."

"You’re probably going to ask me what happened to the girl."

"My job was to protect her if she should be discovered while we were still in German territorial waters."

"But I was already just as hopelessly in love with her as Lobach had been with her mother."

You’re welcome to come for coffee at my house whenever you like. I’m almost always home in the evening.

I think Harriet was murdered. Henrik and I agree on that. It’s the only reasonable explanation.

The murder may have been committed spontaneously. By that I mean that someone seized an opportunity when it presented itself.

But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there’s only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it’s the officer who’s left with the investigation.

I think it was an accident that has such a simple explanation that it will astonish us if we ever find out.

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and all that crap.

Life has to go on; it does go on.

But you’re not here to look into her disappearance?

I have never been able to let it go.

I’m just so damn sick of the whole story. It’s poisoned our lives for decades, and it doesn’t stop doing so.

"Let’s see—how many employees do you have? Six? A monthly magazine with a print run of 21,000, manufacturing costs, salaries, distribution, offices…You need revenues of about 10 million."

"I doubt it," Vanger said.

"But I know what it takes to run a publication…"

"I would like to know how you ended up in this quagmire. Did you have a story or didn’t you?"

"We had a story. But it was a very different story."

"I’m not avoiding the question. I just thought we could discuss it over dinner. I have to talk with my lawyer before I can put together a concrete offer."

"There are things I regret not doing and people I regret not fighting more."

"No-one is completely independent. But I’m not out to take over the magazine, and I don’t give a damn about the contents."

"That’s absolutely the clearest signal we could send—everyone will understand that it’s not a takeover and that the editorial policies won’t change."

"This type of investment would have at least one condition."

Taking away a person’s control of her own life—meaning her bank account—is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose.

But her legal status was difficult.

There was really no option.

In her world, this was the natural order of things.

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 always got revenge.

The rules for social interaction in school had always baffled her.

I would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.

Salander never forgot an injustice, and by nature she was anything but forgiving.

For her, sex had most often been with one of a loose group of friends.

Keep at it. Finish the job.

It’s pointless. But don’t give up.

No crime is perfect. I’m sure we must have missed something.

You’re not a helpless, incompetent girl.

She turned to face him. Her body looked fragile and her face was swollen from crying, and he almost recoiled when he met her eyes.

She had no idea that so many household products could be transformed into deadly weapons.

I need money to buy food.

You have to learn to trust me.

When you’re nice to me, we’ll be friends.

Remember what we agreed.

"She had assumed he was on a power trip and liked to dominate, not that he was an all-out sadist."

"She assumed that she could handle him, and that this was merely a round in a game she was about to win."

"I made a mistake last week...I thought you were going to make me give you a blow job again... I misjudged you."

"You’re going to get a present from me so you’ll always remember our agreement."

"If you ever try to contact me again, copies of this DVD will wind up in every newsroom in Stockholm."

"Once a year, you will turn in your report on my welfare to the Guardianship Agency... You will report that my life is completely normal..."

"I will kill you. And that’s a promise."

"If I should die... if I should fall victim to an accident and be run over by a car or something... then copies of the video will automatically be posted to the newspapers."

"I want your spare set of keys to this apartment and your office."

"When you least expect it, when you’re in bed asleep probably, I’m going to appear in the bedroom with this in my hand."

"I don’t know if I can handle this. You and she might function that way, but I don’t know…"

"I didn’t mean to, but it happened."

"It hurt so damn much that I decided I wasn’t going to let you in again when you came back from prison."

"You were gone, as though you had never existed. It was dark here in the guest house. It was cold and empty in my bed. And there I was, an old maid of fifty-six again."

"I wish I had the chance to live my life over again. Then I would decide on one thing."

"You’re the one who’s the problem."

"But you provoked something in me. I simply couldn’t get enough. It had something to do with the fact that you’re so undemanding."

"If I tell you, promise you won’t laugh."

"I should have devoted myself to this years ago."

"Forget about the coffee. What’s going on?"

The insight struck him like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.

He felt so confused that he stayed on the bus all the way to the last stop.

This is what Blomkvist had noticed subconsciously and which suddenly rose to the surface.

They said goodbye at a bus stop near Järnvägsgatan.

Her face lacked excitement. Her mouth was a thin line.

She looked frightened. Frightened or furious.

He had seen something entirely new, something no-one else had noticed in an investigation that had been marking time for thirty-seven years.

If I’m right, we have to look as far as we still can at what happened in Hedestad that day.

Something happened on Järnvägsgatan.

The key to the mystery was what it was that Harriet had seen in Hedestad.

"I saw Erika Berger on TV."

"I’m proud of you, and I never miss a chance to brag about the fact that you went to prison for what you believe in."

"Everyone has to have something to believe in."

"I hope it hasn’t been a problem for you, your father being a gaolbird."

"I would have been proud to have as my son-in-law if she were my daughter."

"How's your work coming along?"

"Let me do my thinking and I’ll come back and see you tomorrow if you’re feeling better."

"I’d like to continue your Bible studies."

"It would be almost an hour before the next bus left."

"You didn’t have proof."

Knowledge is power.

I only need to talk to you. If you want me to leave, all you have to do is say so.

You have beautiful eyes.

I’m not here to make trouble for you.

Nothing that you discuss with me or with Armansky will be shared with anyone at all.

I’m sorry. I had not in fact planned to make my entrance in this way. I didn’t mean to alarm you.

You think I shouldn’t have mentioned that? In my case it didn’t make a lot of difference. Half the city knows about my relationship with Erika.

A bastard is always a bastard, and if I can hurt a bastard by digging up shit about him, then he deserves it.

If I had to choose between you and him, I’d probably end up in your court.

I’ll take the job. But first you have to sign a contract with Armansky.

I’m not jumping ship. I have some research to do.

I want you to... finish the job.

I will finish the job.

But I’m working for Henrik Vanger, and I take orders only from him.

I told you, I work for Henrik, not for the family.

There are questions that do now need to be answered.

I am still hoping that we can be friends.

I see. Yes, this is certainly an unusual assignment that you’re on.

It’s a long story. I’m investigating a crime that occurred in Hedestad in 1966.

But there is now more material to go on than anyone has had to work with in a very long time.

"Thank God," he said. "I realized that I actually like him."

"Contracts exist to be honored. I work for Henrik."

"Worrying about such trivia is a waste of time."

"If we make an appointment for sometime next week we can go over the finances and I can give you my views on the matter."

"I’ve never had any doubt about that," Blomkvist said.

"So where does all this lead?" Blomkvist wondered aloud.

"I agree. It isn’t even logical."

"There must be some connection to the Vanger family."

"You’ve done a fantastic job of digging up these facts in such a short time."

"It’s just a common or garden bastard who hates women."

"It takes thirty seconds to download a programme from the Net that can crack Word’s encryption protection."

"You must do what you believe is right."

"I believe in Millennium, and I’m convinced that we can win this fight together."

"When I started this job I couldn’t help thinking that it was a waste of time. But I think we’re on the verge of a breakthrough and that it might now be possible to know what really happened."

"It was amazing what you discovered with the pictures."

"Some of the convicted American serial killers were also arrested for arson. Tortured animals and arson crop up in several of Harriet’s murder cases."

"It’s a long shot... But I find nothing in the police report about the cause of the fire, and it would be very interesting to know if there were other unexplained fires hereabouts in the sixties."

"You can ask for my help whenever you run into a problem."

"I’m probably the best in Sweden. There may be two or three others at about my level."

"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."

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.

Whatever the truth is in this story, we’ve worried somebody enough for that person to do something really sick.

This is an animal sacrifice...it definitely means something.

If someone is crazy enough to kill a cat in that disgusting way, he or she could attack us next time.

You know what I mean. I want to know where this story is going.

Don’t ever do anything for nothing.

What should I warn her about?

She has to take care of herself and you have to warn her.

It doesn’t matter how good the enemy’s weapons are. If he can’t see you, he can’t hit you.

If you’re in a tight spot—take the initiative. Better than waiting.

"For me, the only question is: why?"

"There must be a connection," Salander said.

"You’re a perfectly ordinary girl. What does it matter if you’re a little different?"

"I thought there was something different about you the instant I saw you."

"I really want to be your friend, if you’ll let me."

"If this was some run-of-the-mill crackpot who was trying to frighten us, he would have taken the cat down to the garage or even out into the woods. But he went to the crypt."

"I’ve discovered a lot of secrets about you. How many people, for example, know that you’re a hacker?"

"Do you trust me?" Blomkvist persisted.

"I want to know if you’re OK with me. If you trust me."

"Still so polite, Kalle Blomkvist."

"Because it’s so easy. Women disappear all the time. Nobody misses them."

"You are a very ordinary little person, Mikael. You would not be able to understand the godlike feeling of having absolute control over someone’s life and death."

"It’s always so fascinating to see their disappointment."

"A human being is a shell made of skin keeping the cells, blood, and chemical components in place. Very few end up in the history books."

"Those of us who murder for pleasure—I’m not the only one with this hobby—we live a complete life."

"I hold your life in my hands, Mikael. You know that I can dispatch you at any second. You pleaded with me to improve your quality of life, and you did so by using reason and a little good manners."

"I wanted to kill her. I thought about it, but I arrived too late. I couldn’t get over to the island."

"How a man tastes."

"If you call the police, I’m leaving. I don’t want to have anything to do with them."

"Let the police or someone else discover that fucking torture chamber. You and I are just as ignorant about its existence as everyone else in this village."

"If I’d waited for the police, you wouldn’t have survived. I wasn’t going to let that motherfucker kill you."

"You’ve got time—before anyone is going to clean out Martin’s house and discover the basement."

"When you discover the room, you draw your own conclusions and decide for yourself who you want to tell."

"You have a lot of things to take care of. You have to go and tell Henrik, and you have to call a special meeting of the board..."

"You’re the old attorney and problem-solver who is expected to have a plan ready to meet any eventuality, yet you feel powerless to act."

"I think we’re going to solve it."

"They have a personal responsibility. We’ll work it all out later."

"Your family didn’t want me to come at all..."

"Do you still want to know what happened? Even if it turns out to be painful and even if the truth is worse than you imagined?"

"The next time you see me, I’ll tell you the whole story. It may take a while, but I want you to know that I’m coming back and that you’ll know the truth."

I’ve been waiting for this day since 1966.

All of a sudden I don’t care any more.

I accept that it’s all over.

I was fifteen, scared, ashamed, desperate, and all alone.

I hid inside a convent for several years.

My crime falls outside the statute of limitations.

I did what he told me to do. I felt paralysed.

You can bet that Martin was disappointed.

It feels fantastic to tell the truth.

It wasn’t your fault.

“If you two are driving back north, keep an eye on her.”

“What I mean is that I don’t discuss a friend behind her back. I’d be breaking her trust.”

“Friendship—my definition—is built on two things: respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual.”

“If I had to choose between sex and friendship when it comes to you, there’s no doubt which I would pick.”

“We just finished up a case in which men with fucked-up sexuality played a prominent role. If I had to decide, men like that would be exterminated, every last one of them.”

“I’ve never had a problem with reading a text and absorbing what it said.”

“Most people would give an eye tooth to have such a gift.”

“If only she had come to me.”

“We’ve forsaken those girls. They’re going to bury the whole story. Everything in Martin’s basement will be vacuumed into oblivion.”

“You can’t ignore our age difference. It’s no sort of basis for a lasting relationship.”

People aren’t very rational. He has to believe that the police would never think of confiscating his computer.

The message is clear, but without a key they will never be able to interpret the meaning.

I have absolute confidence in all of you.

It's very important that Wennerström believes that Millennium is on the verge of collapse.

I give you my word that that’s not going to happen. Millennium is stronger today than it was a year ago.

We’re going to do it right.

Trust me.

This means that the enemy is being kept informed of exactly what’s going on in our editorial offices.

The best thing that could happen is for Dahlman to go out and tip off the other mass media.

Each time he picks up a porn picture or opens a new home page, we add several rows of source code.

"The idea that had materialised in some unexplored nook of her brain during the last week at Sandhamn had grown into a manic preoccupation."

"Salander worked in a trance-like state. The account—click—email—click—balance sheets—click."

"She understood how it worked. It was as if she were part of the impulses in cyberspace."

"Every single fucking detail that she couldn’t forget even if she tried."

"It was without a doubt the biggest story of their lives."

"I don’t want one single krona from you, unless it comes in the form of presents on my birthday."

"I only want to borrow it, and I need it tomorrow."

"She had already run through half the sum she’d borrowed, and even though she had added in every krona of her own savings, she was still on a tight budget."

"She looked…different."

"Irene Nesser would need to make several more visits to Zürich, but there was no immediate hurry."

"The idea that Sweden’s economy is headed for a crash is nonsense."

"The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less."

"Oh yes, the media do have an enormous responsibility."

"If they had been doing their work properly, we would not find ourselves in this situation today."

"You had to choose between your role as a journalist and your role as a human being."

"I could never have bought your silence. And I’m quite certain that you would have exposed us if Harriet had turned out in some way to have been implicated, or if you thought I was a cretin."

"What the hell, you were worth every krona. I knew you would be."

"You haven’t finished the job. You haven’t written the Vanger family chronicle, which was agreed."

"You know what it feels like to be in the position of someone who would do anything to protect their family."

"I think that she realizes that I will never discuss what happened in the sixties with anyone except for Erika Berger, and I don’t see why Erika needs to know."