My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

Surely taking life for granted is the whole point of being here, because what else are we doing?

Imagination is the only thing that stops us from thinking about death every second. And when we aren’t thinking? Oh, those are all our very best moments, when we’re wasting our lives. It’s an act of magnificent rebellion to do meaningless things, to waste time, to swim and drink soda and sleep late.

You mustn’t think about the fact that it might end, because then you live like a coward, you never love too much or sing too loudly. You have to take it for granted,

Soon Ted will stand up and discover that he’s forgotten how to walk too, that happens to us all when the love of our life falls asleep for the last time, because when the soul leaves the body, evidently the last thing it does is tie our shoelaces together. In the weeks following the death we trip over thin air. It’s the soul’s fault.

“I’m sorry,” she says at once. “You don’t have to be,” he says dismissively. “I do,” she insists. “If you were his friend, I’m sorry. Because the whole world lost an artist, but you lost your human. And I’m sorry you had to share that with the rest of us. You should be allowed to have your grief in peace.”

“Maybe Joar was bigger in the painting because that’s how you saw him. Fish felt big to me, even though I was much taller. People think it’s bad if someone makes you feel small, but it really isn’t.”

Wonder Woman’s “Which will hold greater rule over you? Your fear or your curiosity?”

“Art is coincidence, love is chaos,”

If you saw my worst drawings you’d realize that I’m actually just a fraud. But… before the drawing is finished it isn’t too late. That’s the only time I… like myself.”

“But I don’t think the most important thing for an artist is being able to draw, but having something to

One day you’ll paint someone else’s postcard.”

could never have lived there on my own. I would have frozen to death in that apartment without his eyes on me.”

You’ll realize that you’ve always been able to speak a secret language, one that has no boundaries, because you have no nationality. Art is your homeland.”

“If you feel strange, like you don’t belong anywhere, that’s because you still have your wings. They’re rubbing beneath your skin,” the janitor smiled.

Great art is a small break from human despair, she explained to her son.

He got called terrible things, because children’s brutality knows no limits in its inventiveness.

The most dangerous place on earth is inside us.

‘Because I want to know what’s happening inside you! Because you happened to me! You happen to me every second I’m alive!’ ”

Art is a fragile enough light as it is. It can be blown out by a single sigh. Art needs friends, with our bodies against the wind and our hands cupped around the flame, until it’s strong enough to burn brightly with its own power. Until it’s an inferno. Unstoppable.”

And Leonardo da Vinci, who said that art was never finished, only abandoned.

Then he quoted his mom’s favorite poem, by Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

You can’t love someone out of addiction, all the oceans are the tears of those who have tried. We’re not allowed to die for our children, the universe won’t let us, because then there wouldn’t be any mothers left.

because every day may not have been the best day, but with Fish at least you knew that the day had a chance.

Time weighs more when you’re little.

“The main character and the hero. They aren’t the same thing.”

“No, thank goodness, you haven’t had any training! No one who’s had any training paints like that! Art doesn’t require training, dear child, art just needs friends.”

Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.’ ”

That you should paint like the birds sing. But Kimkim said it was never like that for him. He said he painted the way we laughed.”

“When I was standing in front of that painting, I forgot to be alone, I forgot to be afraid, do you understand?”