My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

To look for a way to show other people: this was me, these were my humans, these were our farts.

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 granted, the artist thinks, the whole thing: sunrises and slow Sunday mornings and water balloons and another person’s breath against your neck. That’s the only courageous thing a person can do.

Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.”