My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

Most of all she doesn’t like her heart because it’s always nervous. Stupid, stupid heart.

Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that’s pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.

she died of being sad all the time.

Art is empathy.

Imagination is a child’s only weapon.

Grown men don’t have enough things they’re afraid of on this planet to become good at running.

Because in an ugly place, he was born with so much beauty inside him that it was like an act of rebellion.

his joy never lasted very long, his skin was too thin to keep reality out.

He was good at seeing the beauty in everything, that happens if you’re no good at seeing it in yourself.

He would often try to think that perhaps that has to be the case: that our teenage years have to simultaneously be the brightest light and the darkest depths, because that’s how we learn to figure out our horizons.

some of us are born in the wrong place, the whole of our childhood is like being shipwrecked on a desert island, we ache with homesickness without knowing what home is yet. That’s all childhood friends are, people stuck on the same island. If you find a single one of them, you can cope with almost anything.

his anxiety made him feel like he was drowning. That he was so scared that if he held on to his friends’ hands, he would drag them down into the darkness with him.

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.

and most of all angry at death for having such good taste. Always taking the best first.

The artist was an observer, he couldn’t bear to be observed, the world always gets those mixed up.

Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.

It was worth every blow if Ali realized she wasn’t so damn alone, at least not all the damn time. Who gets a friend like that? Hardly anyone.

Love is chaos.

Nature gains nothing from unhappy children, yet they are still walking around everywhere, without the words to describe their anxiety.

Because how could you even begin to explain such a feeling to someone who has been happy and secure all their life? Should you say it’s like a monster sleeping heavily on your lungs, so that every breath feels like you’re drowning? That it’s a voice in your head screaming that everything about you is a mistake?

The most dangerous place on earth is inside us.

Art is nothing for people with armor, you need a thin skin, but someone like that isn’t only sensitive to beauty, but to everything.

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.

“If I live until I’m eighty, it won’t matter, because this is my now forever.”

It’s just

cool, really cool, that we happened at all.”

He’s thought so many times as an adult that it’s a lie that people are scared of being alone, because what we fear is being abandoned.

“It suits you, that laugh. I’m glad they didn’t manage to take it from you.”

“Who?” “All the people who have tried.”

Grief is a luxury for those living an easier life.

We do nothing but try to find ways to destroy everything that’s keeping us alive, but we’re still here?”

People say that anxiety is fear for no reason, but Ted’s brain is very helpful when it comes to providing suggestions.

Ted and Ted’s brain are not friends, they’re classmates, forced to do a group assignment called “life” together. And it’s not going great.

Far too much happens when you’re alive, everything goes so damn fast, how are you supposed to have time to be a human being?

“Maybe it’s hurt inside?” Ted said sadly. “It’s probably just frightened!” Joar said. “That’s the same thing,” Ted pointed out softly.

is an act of violence when an adult yells at a child, all adults know that deep down, because all adults were once little. Yet we still do it. Time after time, we fail at being human beings.

It’s hard to be little, hard to be big, hard to be everything in between.

our brains only store a few moments from the best days of our lives, but we remember every second of the worst.

Violence isn’t a genetic illness, violence is a contagion, it passes from skin to skin. The heart gets infected.

“I think perhaps it flew back to its friends, darling. You would have done the same.”

The world is full of miracles, but none greater

than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.

It’s a funny thing. The person we fall in love with, we hardly ever call by their name. Because it’s somehow just so obvious that it’s you I’m talking to, that it’s you I’m always thinking of. Who else?

evil among men is like: It’s like water being heated up a little at a time. It gets worse and worse, but so slowly it’s hardly noticeable, so everyone can convince themselves that it’s probably normal, until we’re all boiling.

That’s the worst thing about death, that it happens over and over again. That the human body can cry forever.

“Kimkim used to sit in a window looking down at the street and ask how everyone else could bear to be human.” “What did you tell him?” Louisa asks. “I said that maybe we could learn how.”

Their humans are playing hide-and-seek.

“You sound happy,” he smiles. “I am. You sound happy too.” “Maybe I’m on my way.” “That’s all anyone can be, Ted. On our way!”