My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

You can see a painting, and for a single moment of your life, just for a single breath, you can forget to be afraid. If you’ve ever experienced that, you know how it feels.

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.

In life we might be enemies, but when faced with death, we see the truth: we are one species, all we have is each other, and where you go, I shall follow.

They have never met, but it doesn’t matter. Art teaches us to mourn for strangers.

Art isn’t chronological. Everything the artist drew came from a place in his head that he could only get to if he wasn’t looking for it. If he was told to draw, it was like waking from a dream and trying to dream it again.

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

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?

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.”

About how he and Ali were out driving all evening. How they stopped the car on a hill not far from the house where Joar and Louisa are sitting now, and fell asleep there in each other’s arms. They spent one entire night together, some people might think that doesn’t sound like much, but they can never have been properly in damn love. Most people have never had a hint of how that feels.

“Fish read in a book that in Heaven, you get to choose one moment from your life. Your best moment. And then you get to feel like that forever. She said it doesn’t matter if we live till we’re eighty then, because that’s just lots and lots and lots of nows. And one single really good now is enough.”

“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!”