My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

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.

Life is long, his friend had said in the hospital, but he didn’t mention the fact that almost every moment hurts when you have to live it alone.

“Art is coincidence, love is chaos,”

You can be whatever you want to in life, as long as you don’t become a critic!

The most dangerous place on earth is inside us.

Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

They were like two colors. Once they were mixed together, there was no way of separating them.”

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.

“Don’t be ashamed to be a human being—be proud! Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly. You’ll never be complete, and that’s as it should be.”