Fredrik Backman Quotes

Unfairness is a far more natural state in the world than fairness.

At a certain age almost all the questions a person asks him or herself are really just about one thing: how should you live your life?

It's only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That's all.

Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound. And

David drives back to Björnstad. Sits in the car and cries in anger. He is ashamed. He is disgusted. With himself. For an entire hockey life he has trained a boy, loved him like a son, been loved back as a father. There is no player as loyal as Benji. No bigger heart than his. How many times has David hugged number sixteen after a game and told him that? "You are the bravest bastard I know, Benji." The bravest bastard I know. " And after all those hours in locker rooms, all those nights in the bus, all the conversations and blood, sweat and tears, the boy didn't dare tell his coach his greatest secret. It's a betrayal, David knows it's a terrible betrayal. There is no other way to explain how much a grown man must have failed for such a warrior of a boy to make him think his coach would be less proud of him if he was gay. David hates himself for not being better than his father. For that is a son's job.

It's so easy to think that what we post online is like raising your voice in a living room when it's actually more like shouting from the rooftops. Our fantasy worlds always have consequences for other people's realities.

An unreasonable amount of paperwork is required these days just to be a human being.

...just as Elsa opens Audi's door to jump out, he (Dad) turns to her hesitantly and says in a low voice:

"...but there are moments when I sincerely hope that not ALL your best traits come from Granny and Mum, Elsa."

And then Elsa squeezes her eyes together tightly and puts her forehead against his shoulder and her fingers into her jacket pocket and spins the lid of the red felt-tip pen that he gave her when she was small, so she could add her own punctuation marks, and which is still the best present he's ever given her. Or anyone.

"You gave me your words," she whispers.

What sort of love is it if you hand someone over when it gets difficult?" she cries, her voice shaking with sorrow. "Abandon someone when there's

And that laughter of hers, which, for the rest of his life, would make him feel as if someone was running around barefoot on the inside of his breast.

I hope you'll know more than I did. That you'll never fear justice. Never misinterpret the fight for equality as a war between the sexes. That you'll never believe that a woman doesn't deserve the same rights or freedoms or chances that you do. I hope you'll know that, above all, most people are not looking for special treatment, most people don't want everything to be the same for everyone, most people just want things to be FAIR for everyone. I hope you'll get that, way faster than I did. And I hope that you'll never get it into your head that just because a woman deserves every opportunity you do, you have to stop holding the door open for her when you can. That you'll never think it's impossible to be equals and behave like a gentleman at the same time. Because, as your grandmothers will teach you, that's rubbish.

Ove has a heart problem ... he begins in an anodyne voice, following this up with a series of terms that no human being with less than ten years of medical training or an entirely unhealthy addiction to certain television series could ever be expected to understand.

I mean, this political correctness! It's worse than apartheid

You're the funniest thing she knows. That's why she always draws you in color.

Now you listen to me," says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door. "You've given birth to two children and quite soon will be squeezing out a third. You've come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense. You've learned a new language and got yourself an education and you're holding together a family of obvious incompetents. And I'll be damned if I've seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now ... I'm not asking for brain surgery. I'm asking you to drive a car. It's got an accelerator, a brake and a clutch. Some of the greatest twits in world history have sorted out how it works. And you will as well." And then he utters seven words, which Parvaneh will always remember as the loveliest compliment he'll ever give her. "Because you are not a complete twit.

She wonders how much space a person has left in her soul to change herself, once she gets older. What people does she still have to meet, what will they see in her, and what will they make her see in herself? Sami

You're never quite alone when you can stand on a balcony - you have all the cars and houses and the people in the streets. You're among them, but also not. That's the best thing about balconies. The

It's just as easy to be exclusive as it is to be inclusive, just as easy to create an Us as a Them. Benji has never been worried about being beaten up or hated if anyone finds out the truth about him; he's been hated by every opposing team since he was a child. The only thing he's scared of is that one day there will be jokes that his teammates and coach won't tell when he's in the room. The exclusivity of laughter.

When the wind blows off the lake at this time of year, it feels like your face is being torn by ghosts.

There are people who say that children don't behave the way adults tell them to, but the way they see adults behave. Perhaps that's true. But children live the way adults tell them to a fair bit as well.

Religion is something between you and other people; it's full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith . . . that's just between you and God.

It's possible to love your grandmother for years and years without really knowing anything about her.

She imagined she'd like to explain that it's difficult to know who you are once you are alone, when you have always been there for the sake of someone else.

When she realizes that they are about to fall, she summons the strength to stand on her own two feet. Because that is what women like Britt-Marie do. They find the strength when they have to do something for others.

But sorrow is unreliable in that way. When people don't share it there's a good chance that it will drive them apart instead. Maybe

You can always be absolutely certain of one thing when it comes to power, Peter: no one who gets their hands on it ever lets go of it voluntarily.

You were never easy, darling difficult sulky you, never diplomatic. You might even have been easy to dislike at times. But no one, absolutely no one, would dare tell me you were hard to love.

Loving someone is like moving into a house. At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without their creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.

Life is so damn, damn, damn tough sometimes that it's almost unbearable. Even if that's the way it's supposed to be.

Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn't.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry By Fredrik Backman This

missing someone who is still here,

That's all this is about. We want you to be better than us. Because if our kids don't grow up to be better than us, then what's the point of all this? We want you to be kinder, smarter, more humble, more generous, and more selfless than we are

The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?

Friendship is both complicated and not complicated at all.

People feel pain. And it shrinks their souls. The

It's about fear and love, and how they seem to go hand in hand most of the time.

All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we're going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.

And I don't think you need to be scared of forgetting me, the boy says after a moment's consideration.
No? ....
No. Because if you forget me then you'll just get the chance to get to know me again. And you'll like that, because I'm actually a pretty cool person to get to know.

People have to tell their stories, Elsa. Or they suffocate.

All over her face and sunglasses so big that one can't tell whether they're a pair of glasses or some kind of helmet.

Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab. He's the kind of man who points at people he doesn't like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman's flashlight.

A few years turned into more years, and more years turned into all years. Years have a habit of behaving like that.

Big secrets turn us into small men." Benji

And then it goes as with all anger attacks. They don't just consist of one anger, but of many. A long series of angers, flung into a volcano in one's breast until it erupts.

And it would be a damned pity for him to be responsible for kicking a decent man's son into the street just because the son has some principles.

Only different people change the world," Granny used to say. "No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing.

But she's going to see the world and she's going to feel the wind in her hair. And she's going to solve all her crosswords in ink.

She's holding a crossword magazine in her hand. Britt-Marie likes crosswords very much because there are very clear rules about how to do them, She only ever does them in pencil, though - Granny always said Britt-Marie was the sort of woman who would have to drink two glasses of wine and feel really wild and crazy to be able to fantasise about solving a crossword in ink.

There's an obvious difference between the children who live in homes where the money can run out and the ones who don't. How old you are when you realize that also makes a difference.

It's been a while since someone reminded him of the difference between being wicked because one has to be or because one can.

Sons want their fathers' attention until the precise moment when fathers want their sons'.

You can love something without loving everything about it. You don't have to feel embarrassed about not being proud. That applies to hockey, but it also applies to friends.

Normal life is presentable. In normal life, you clean up the kitchen and keep your balcony tidy and take care of your children. It's hard work
harder than one might think.

She found it easier to forgive than Ove did. Forgive God and the universe and everything. Ove got angry instead. Maybe because he felt someone had to be angry on her behalf, when everything that was evil seemed to assail the only person he'd ever met who didn't deserve it.

Further to this, Ove has the cat's resentful stares to contend with. Something in its eyes reminds him of the way Sonja used to look at him.

She taught him to read and bake saffron buns and pour coffee without the pot dribbling, and when her hands started to shake the boy taught himself to pour half cups so she wouldn't spill any, because she was always ashamed when she did and he never let her feel ashamed in front of him.

So many hearts broke the day Elsa was born. Shattered with such force by the wave that the shards of the glass were dispersed all around the world. Improbable catastrophes produce improbable things in people, improbable sorrow and improbable heroism.

This sport demands only one thing from you. Your all.

People of Granny's age describe Wikipedia as 'an encyclopaedia, but on the net!' Encyclopaedias are what Elsa describes as 'Wikipedia, but analogue.

The years will allow them to meet in the middle, when the boys thoughts expand and grandpa's contract.

Don't kick the shit, it'll go all over the place!

She carefully lets go of his hand in the darkness, but her voice still rests in his ear.

If you don't like people, they can't hurt you.

They hate people and their stories; they have hated for so long and with such intensity that in the end the darkness enveloped their whole bodies until their shapes were no longer discernible. That is also why they are so difficult to defeat, because they can disappear into walls or into the ground or float up. They're ferocious and bloodthirsty, and if you're bitten by one you don't just die; a far more serious and terrible fate lies in store: you lose your imagination. (talking about shadows)

Because this was what Ove had learned: if one didn't have anything to say, one had to find something to ask. If there was one thing that made people forget to dislike one, it was when they were given the opportunity to talk about themselves.

Promise you won't hate me when you find out who I've been.

You asked "Am I a good mother?," always the same, the same...
...answer that you were seeking, when you should have known that
You were the strength inside
You were all that I could become
You taught me the value of "sorry," but the only time you retreated was when you were taking aim
You taught me the humility of tears but never let me apologize for existing
You didn't dress me up in fragile garments, you gave me armor
You taught me that daughters don't have to have dreams-we can have goals.

He never understood why she chose him. She loved abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man filled entirely with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved in his pockets. She danced.

I think he needs help.

It's hard to help those who don't want to help themselves.

Someone who wants to help himself is possibly not the one who most needs help from others.

The amount I love you, Noah, "she would tell him with her lips to his ear after she read fairy tales about elves and he was jut about to fall asleep, "the sky will never be that big.

Ana was a tornado. A jagged, hundred-sided peg in a community where everyone was supposed to fit into round holes.

When people don't talk so much they don't dish out the crap either.

I only had you for the blink of an eye," he says.
She laughs. "You had me an entire lifetime. All of mine."
"That wasn't enough

All roads lead to something you were predestined to do.

Never again do you find friends like the ones you have when you're fifteen years old.

Has never liked the feeling of losing control. He's come to realize over the years that it's this very feeling that normal folk like and strive for, but as far as Ove is concerned only a complete bloody airhead could find loss of control a state worth aiming for. He wonders if he'll feel nauseated, if he'll feel pain

It hurts less and less. That's one thing about forgetting things. You forget things that hurt too.

They construct words of forgiveness from the ruins of fighting words.

Mum looks hesitant. As mums get when they are accustomed to being able to predict their daughters' questions, and then suddenly find they were wrong about that. Elsa shrugs.

Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss,

Nine lives won't last you very long, will they?' says Ove. The cat licks its paw and looks as if it's not the sort of cat that likes to keep count.

Lack of respect is like sparks in a summer forest; if you don't trample them out at once, the fire spreads until you find yourself surrounded.

Anita is small and colourless in her grey trousers, grey knitted cardigan, grey hair and grey skin. But ove notices that her face is slightly red-eyed and swollen. Quickly she wipes her eyes and blinks away the pain. As women of that generation do. As if they stood in the doorway every morning, determinedly driving sorrow out of the house with a broom.

Are we here to learn how to say good-bye,

Elsa learned all about LPs and CDs that afternoon. That was when she worked out why old people seem to have so much free time, because in the olden days until Spotify came along they must have used up almost all their time just changing the track. She

His colleagues learned to appreciate him for it. "When people don't talk so much they don't dish out the crap either," one of his older workmates said to him one afternoon down on the track. And Ove nodded. Some got it and some didn't. There

That was when she worked out why old people seem to have so much free time, because in the olden days until Spotify came along they must have used up almost all their time just changing the track.

Her laughter catches him off guard. As if it's carbonated and someone has poured it too fast and it's bubbling over in all directions. It doesn't fit at all with the gray cement and right-angled garden paving stones. It's an untidy, mischievous laugh that refuses to go along with rules and prescriptions.

You have to love me twice as much now," she said.
And then Ove lied to her for the second - and last - time: he said that he would. Even though he knew it wasn't possible for him to love her anymore than he already did.

Sometimes I think I'd like someone to kill him."
Alf doesn't answer. Elsa looks at the hammer.
"I mean ... sort of kill, anyway. I know one shouldn't think people deserve to die. But sometimes I'm not sure people like him deserve to live ... "
Alf leans against the balcony railing.
"It's human."
"Is it human to want people to die?"
Alf shakes his head calmly.
"It's human not to be sure.

All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe. That is the reason why passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands that we risk.

I just mean ... damn ... this might sound a bit crazy, but sometimes you can't help wondering if we don't take all this a bit too seriously. If we aren't putting too much pressure on the juniors. They're not really much more than ... kids."

...

"That depends what we want from the kids. And what the kids want from hockey.

His days passed like this, slow and methodical. And then one morning he saw her. She had brown hair and blue eyes and red shoes and a big yellow clasp in her hair.
And then there was no more peace and quiet for Ove.

You can't kill a nightmare, but you can scare it. And there's nothing so feared by nightmares as milk and cookies.

But Granny was the sort of person you brought with you when you went to war, and that was what Elsa loved about her.

It's said that a person's first thought is the most honest, but that often isn't true. It's often just the most stupid. Why else would we have afterthoughts?

For the perpetrator, rape lasts just a matter of minutes. For the victim, it never stops.

On the one hand, our entire species survived because we stuck together and cooperated, but on the other hand we developed because the strongest individuals always thrived at the expense of the weak. So we always end up arguing about where the boundaries should be drawn. How selfish are we allowed to be? How much are we obliged to care about each other?

He was never able to properly explain what happened to him that day. But he stopped being happy.