David Lagercrantz Quotes & Sayings

You could probably call the whole thing an ordinary love story. — David Lagercrantz

I'm an author who likes assignments, who needs suggestions, ideas I would never have thought of otherwise - then something happens inside my alien head. Other people have to decide whether or not I'm a good writer, but I do have the ability to write in different styles. — David Lagercrantz

Wait, Ed. Did you say she?" "You better believe it. Our hacker's a she! — David Lagercrantz

All I wanted to do was to follow my passion and tell a good story. — David Lagercrantz

The capacity of computers is doubling every eight months. It's exponential development. I think it's a real threat, actually, that a computer one day will be more intelligent than us. — David Lagercrantz

Just think if life could be like that sometimes... If joy could express itself with the same force as pain. — David Lagercrantz

Are you insane?" "Probably, yes," she said. "Empathy deficit disorder. Excessive violence. Something along those lines. — David Lagercrantz

Those who spy on the people end up themselves being spied on by the people. There's a fundamental democratic logic to it. — David Lagercrantz

wrote: What should we make of Frans Balder's artificial intelligence?

The words blinked onto the computer screen: Mission accomplished! - Plague — David Lagercrantz

Kira was on her way, unhinged on top of everything else. — David Lagercrantz

Of course I want to be a best seller because I'm in the business and I want to be read, but there is no money in the world that can compensate for writing badly. — David Lagercrantz

A man who can make love with another man can also make love with the enemy. — David Lagercrantz

People are so unnecessarily negative about envy. It really ought to be struck off the list of deadly sins. — David Lagercrantz

I have this reporter's temperament still in me - I thrive under pressure. — David Lagercrantz

The real demon in my life is my father. — David Lagercrantz

Those who are different, also have a tendency to think differently. — David Lagercrantz

star stays alive as a result of two opposing actions, the fusion at its core forcing it outwards and the gravitational pull keeping it together. She saw it as a balancing act, a tug of war from which a victor eventually emerges, once the fuel for the reactions runs out and the explosions weaken. When gravity gains the upper hand, the celestial body shrinks like a punctured balloon and becomes smaller and smaller. In this way, a star can vanish into nothing. Salander liked black holes. She felt an affinity to them. — David Lagercrantz

The pace of growth goes on increasing and in the end it escapes our control. — David Lagercrantz

Money talks, bullshit walks. First and foremost the magazine had to pay its way. — David Lagercrantz

They locked her up and kept trying to break her. But she kept coming back, and do you know what I think?" "No." "She got stronger each time. — David Lagercrantz

what matters is not that we believe in God. God is not small-minded. What matters is for us to understand that life is serious and rich. We should appreciate it and also try to make the world a better place. Whoever finds a balance between the two is close to God. — David Lagercrantz

We must fight intolerance, racism and the far-Right. — David Lagercrantz

We'll never let him do that to you again. Never. — David Lagercrantz

Who knows, perhaps the will to please leads people to crime as often as evil or greed does. People want to fit in and do well, and they do indescribably stupid things because of it. Is that what happened here? — David Lagercrantz

I'm very bad at violence in real life. I can't stand it. And I'm so fed up with crime novels that have too much violence. I can't really do it. It's unnecessary. — David Lagercrantz

Salander was up at 5:00 the next morning and hacked into the NSF Major Research Instrumentation supercomputer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology - she needed all the mathematical skills she could muster. — David Lagercrantz

It wasn't just escapism, he persuaded himself. Sometimes the best ideas occur to you while your mind is occupied with something completely different. Pieces of the puzzle can suddenly fall into place. — David Lagercrantz

All great characters, great icons, in literature are a bit of a riddle, and that's the reason we go back to them over and over. — David Lagercrantz

Alan Turing is such an amazing, tragic story. — David Lagercrantz

I met a lot of hackers, and some of them were very arrogant. They thought I was stupid because I couldn't follow what they were talking about. But then I met this great guy whom companies hire to find their security holes, and he was very good about explaining so I could understand. — David Lagercrantz

Well, don't tell me that sexual freedom was Stalin's lasting contribution to mankind. — David Lagercrantz

Young people are meant to go off the rails politically, aren't they? And there are certainly far worse things one can do than dream about equality. — David Lagercrantz

There is no money in the world that would compensate me for writing a lousy book. — David Lagercrantz

My father was this huge, influential intellectual in the '60s and '70s. He was one of the main players in the cultural discussion in Sweden, the editor of papers. — David Lagercrantz

one must never underestimate anyone or cling to preconceived ideas. — David Lagercrantz

You have to search for the best writer - I'm not saying I'm the one, but it's a bad idea to just find the person who is a copycat of Stieg Larsson. — David Lagercrantz

we live in a twisted world where everything, both big and small, is subject to surveillance, and where anything worth money will always be exploited. — David Lagercrantz

But most important of all, he kicked off in the humble tone he had been taught in his management courses: — David Lagercrantz

I'm a strange kind of author - I like assignments. I wasn't clever enough to invent an iconic figure like Salander, but she's my kind of girl. — David Lagercrantz

We had all these famous writers in Sweden and from all over the world home at dinner. I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a highbrow writer as my father. He never, ever read anything like crime novels. He wrote biographies of Dante, James Joyce, August Strindberg and Joseph Conrad. — David Lagercrantz

I want to have new challenges and write new crazy books because I think it makes me a better writer to be insecure and try new things. — David Lagercrantz

I now realize that I should blame myself when men indulge in such wildly wishful thinking that they see a sexual invitation in a simple smile. — David Lagercrantz

The sum of all vices does not remain constant. Each one breeds another. — David Lagercrantz

These days you can't do a goddamn thing online without leaving footprints. — David Lagercrantz

What is there left once you have lost your manliness? — David Lagercrantz

I have the deepest respect for Eva Gabrielsson and all she has gone through, but I also know that I make maybe her sad, and I am sad about that, but I make so many other people happy. — David Lagercrantz

Sometimes things go wrong, no matter how careful you are. — David Lagercrantz

He read political science, mass media communications, finance, and international conflict resolution, — David Lagercrantz

Everything has its time — David Lagercrantz

The truth is of course a difficult discipline for us. Not only do we have to discover it. We've also got to handle it in the right way. It's enough to wear you down, isn't it? — David Lagercrantz

I'm ashamed to say that I'm from a very privileged background. — David Lagercrantz

A conventional crime story is simple - it's just a corpse in the river or something, and a detective with an alcohol problem. — David Lagercrantz

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. — David Lagercrantz

Where are you going?" Turing had asked.
"Nowhere."
"Me too. — David Lagercrantz

My father was highbrow: writing long biographies of Dante and stuff like that. Ghostwriting sportsman memoirs? That was sort of the lowest of the low. — David Lagercrantz

Gut feeling is often a better tool than all the psychological theories in the world. — David Lagercrantz

- Fair enough, dit Linus Brandell. — David Lagercrantz

inspired him to bear witness to a world which was bleeding with injustice and intolerance and petty corruption. — David Lagercrantz

I write best when I sort of collide myself with another man. So I think, I hope, that a combination of me and Stieg Larsson will create something good. — David Lagercrantz

To be alive, Professor Sharif, means not being completely consistent. — David Lagercrantz

A supervillain must continue to exist. — David Lagercrantz

synaesthesia - the condition where two or more senses are connected, for example when numbers are seen in colour and every series of numbers forms an image in the mind. — David Lagercrantz

People want to fit in and do well, and so they do indescribably stupid things. — David Lagercrantz

My life as an author has always been about brilliant, odd people. — David Lagercrantz

Your uncompromising attitude makes people feel pathetic. Your very existence reminds them just how much they've sold out, — David Lagercrantz

I'm not a secretive guy. I'm talkative. — David Lagercrantz

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? — David Lagercrantz

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

How come all lunatics and murderers are religious these days? — David Lagercrantz

we're equal before the law - if we pay the same amount. — David Lagercrantz

But afterwards in the pub, they had dreamed about the big stories and talked for hours of how they would never be satisfied with the conventional or the shallow but instead would always dig deep. They were young and ambitious and wanted it all, all at once. There were times when Levin missed that, not the salary, or the working hours, or even the easy life in the bars and the women, but the dreams - he missed the power in them. He sometimes longed for that throbbing urge to change society and journalism and to write so that the world would come to a standstill and the mighty powers bow down. Even a hotshot like himself wondered: Where did the dreams go? — David Lagercrantz

Ha, no, that it's always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn't care less. It's the ones fighting for good who are consumed by remorse. — David Lagercrantz

The apple was meant to take away the bitter taste, perhaps," he said.
"I imagine that Mr. Turing wasn't exactly looking for a taste experience," said Corell.
"Man always tries to limit his suffering. — David Lagercrantz

[...] something that was called an agreement is not necessarily always that. On the contrary, one party might advance their self-interest under the guise of a common decision, and in the long run it often becomes clear that someone is suffering, despite assurances to the contrary. — David Lagercrantz

The beautiful thing is I have sort of grown up. I don't care if I'm highbrow or not anymore. — David Lagercrantz

technological singularity," the state at which computer intelligence will have overtaken our own. — David Lagercrantz

If you wanted to show that someone was a good chap, the essence of a good and clean Englishman, you would say that he was an athlete. — David Lagercrantz

I wrote about Alan Turing, the great mathematician and code-breaker. He was an absolutely different person, certainly more brilliant than I ever will be. — David Lagercrantz

To put it in somewhat drastic terms, Cambridge in the thirties was characterised by two things: a craze for communism and a craze for homosexuality.
"Rubbish!" Farley said.
"Well, you're bound to have been busy with other things as well, like drunkenness, geometry and Shakespeare. — David Lagercrantz

it's always the wrong people who have the guilty conscience. Those who are really responsible for suffering in the world couldn't care less. — David Lagercrantz

This isn't a negotiation, it's not even a conversation. I'm just setting out the terms, that's all. — David Lagercrantz

I like stupid questions," Rimmer said. "They allow one to feel intelligent for once. — David Lagercrantz

What had he said about machines?"
Block was not entirely sure about that. Something about their eventually being able to think, something which the woman said was at odds with the Christian view of things, just like his sexual inclinations. — David Lagercrantz

I know I don't want to be Stieg Larsson my whole life. — David Lagercrantz

Magician of Lublin, — David Lagercrantz

Sometimes the best ideas occur to you while your mind is occupied with something completely different. — David Lagercrantz

Money talks, bullshit walks. — David Lagercrantz

If joy could express itself with the same force as pain," he said. — David Lagercrantz

You either have a useful contribution to make or you don't, regardless of whether you're head of the office or the emperor of China. — David Lagercrantz

I'm always interested in talented or odd people, and my whole life I've written about geniuses who society has treated badly and they strike back - or not. — David Lagercrantz

If you have an extreme character, you need normal characters to contrast them. Sherlock Holmes certainly needed a Dr. Watson. And Pippi Longstocking, who supposedly inspired Lisbeth Salander, needed Tommy and Annika, the normal middle-class neighbors. — David Lagercrantz

I want to be read, and I certainly want to sell, but I also see my father's eye from Heaven: 'Always write quality. It doesn't matter if you sell; if it's good, it's good - if you capture the complexity of life.' — David Lagercrantz

It is impossible to overestimate how humourless underpaid journalists can be. — David Lagercrantz

He was undoubtedly intelligent and well informed, but too right-wing for Grane's tastes. It was rare to find a well-educated Swede who was also a wholehearted supporter of the American Republican Party - he even expressed some sympathy for the Tea Party movement. — David Lagercrantz