My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

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.

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

They’re vibrating with laughter, as if one of them has just let loose a really, really good fart. They don’t get any of that, the ignorant, useless rich people back in that old church, because they aren’t in enough pain. They walk around in there, happy and content and pleased with the way the world works, so they think it’s a painting of the sea. But any idiot can paint the sea, even a happy idiot can paint the sea! This is a painting of laughter, and you can only understand that if you’re full of holes, because then laughter is a small treasure. Adults will never understand that, because they don’t laugh at farts, and how the hell are you supposed to trust the judgment of someone like that with something as important as art? They’ve never loved anything so much that it’s worth being beaten up by a guard just to get to see it once in your life.

Not to be mean, but healthy people aren’t quite right in the head, the artist thinks. Surely taking life for granted is the whole point of being here, because what else are we doing? We’re a bunch of lonely apes on a rock in the universe, our breath consists of eighty percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, and one hundred percent anxiety. The only thing we can take for granted is that everyone we have ever met and everyone we have ever known and everyone we have ever loved will die. So how great must our imaginations be for us to even summon up the enthusiasm to get out of bed each morning? Endless! 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. To be silly and frivolous, to laugh at stupid little jokes and tell stupid little stories. Or to paint big paintings, the biggest you can manage, and to try to learn to whisper in color. To look for a way to show other people: this was me, these were my humans, these were our farts. These were our bodies, and they were small, far too small, because they couldn’t contain all our love. That’s all of life. All we can hope for. 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 gr...

All his best ideas came from his sense of humor. The only thing he wasn’t much good at was being alone, because he hated silence, that was when he got all his worst ideas. That was why Ted always made sure he got to the crossroads before him every morning.

“People worshipped his art. He was loved by millions of people. But there’s a difference between being loved and receiving love,”

Great art is a small break from human despair,

“It suits you, that laugh. I’m glad they didn’t manage to take it from you.” “Who?” “All the people who have tried.”

Joar had sold many bicycles in his life, but that day was the first time he had sold his own. And that was the money they used to buy the canvas and paint that would change the world.

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 art that helps me cope. Because art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death. That we create and paint and dance and fall in love, that’s our rebellion against eternity. Everything beautiful is a shield. Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.’ ”