I was not allowed to talk about being adopted when growing up. I walked around feeling like I was going to explode.

If I compared myself to my kids, they know everything, and they're like small little hackers. I feel also that my identity can be stolen; I'm very paranoid about it compared to other people in the younger generation.

What Stieg Larsson was up to - it was the Swedish guilt over World War II. All of our neighbors had the most terrible experiences with the bad forces, but Sweden didn't. I think we use the thrillers in a different way. We never write a thriller like 'Who is the murderer?' The big question in most of our thrillers is... 'Why?'

I think the whole mission of being here on Earth is to accept what you have, and my journey was to accept my own life and not pretend anything else. I think that's what we all struggle with.

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.

There's music every day. I don't think I could write without it. Not that I listen while I'm writing. It's more hearing a piece of music that I want to somehow convert into prose, as a creative inspiration.

I like Louboutins, but some women think they can just put on Louboutins and they're stylish, and that's not the case. Someone can go into T.J. Maxx or Ross, pick out some clothes and own it. As long as you have that eye for creativity and know how to put it together, it's so much more interesting.

The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination.