Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.

If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't.

One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters.

I loved fantasy but I particularly loved the stories in which somebody got out of where they were and into somewhere better - as in the 'Chronicles Of Narnia ' 'The Wizard Of Oz ' 'The Phantom Tollbooth ' the 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon on Saturday morning in the '80s.

Jealousy that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.

I always wanted to ride a dragon myself so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies the myths dragons. It all exists even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?

When you're 14 anything with a sword and a dragon is pretty cool. But when you're 21 and you've read 2 000 fantasy novels you start to realize that some of those books well they weren't really good. OK let's be honest. A lot of them were crap.

Really I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady you know 'tough this and tough that.' Then there is this business about 'gooey.' The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.