My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

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

“Being human is to grieve, constantly.”

The world is extremely inventive, it has plenty of ways of breaking children.

the world has spent thousands of years practicing how to puncture the lungs of children who are different.

Being a parent is so strange, all our children’s pain belongs to us, but so does their joy.

he has never told anyone the story of his childhood, there’s a kind of boundary for the sort of emotions you’re prepared to share with others when you’re hardly comfortable sharing them with yourself.

adults have to be adults so that children can be children.

“If there is nothing but what we make in this world, brothers, let us make good.”

When you’re fourteen years old, a single person can be like wind beneath a butterfly’s wings.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “No need, I wasn’t badly hurt.” “No, I mean I’m sorry that you talk about that like it was normal. I’m sorry you didn’t have a better childhood.

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?

You can’t love someone out of addiction, all the oceans are the tears of those who have tried.

There’s no limit to how dangerous someone who seems kind can be.

“There’s nothing more dangerous than being noticed by men,”

You can choose to be alone, but no one chooses to be left.

The most dangerous creature on the planet is, and has always been, a young man.

Grief is a luxury for those living an easier life.

She wishes she were as good at abandoning people as she is at being abandoned,

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

It is an act of violence when an adult yells at a child, all adults know that deep down, because all adults were once little.

“Joar thought he was going to turn out like his old man. That violence is something you inherit. But that’s wrong. Violence isn’t a genetic illness, violence is a contagion, it passes from skin to skin. The heart gets infected. It’s exhausting to always be angry when you’re a child, constantly having to tense your body not to cry, because you know that if you start, you’ll never be able to stop.

Perhaps knowing that you are enough for one person goes a long way.

It is probably never easy for anyone to return to the place where they grew up, there’s no way to forget who you are there, no matter how hard you’ve tried to become someone else.

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.

She smiled and people saw superficiality, she was kind and people saw weakness, no matter what she did they would always talk crap about her in the supermarket. Women like her can never do the right thing, their men’s guilt is always theirs.

“I’m sorry I stayed silent. I’m sorry I was a coward.”

I don’t even think all the people who go to church every Sunday believe in God. I think they just need company. To feel that they belong to a group.”

One single good deed can’t outweigh a lifetime of bad ones, but those men were prepared to give it a try.