A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

Ove has paid his mortgage. Done his duty. Gone to work. Never taken a day of sick leave. Shouldered his share of the burden. Taken a bit of responsibility. No one does that anymore, no one takes responsibility. Now it’s just computers and consultants and council bigwigs going to strip clubs and selling apartment leases under the table. Tax havens and share portfolios. No one wants to work. A country full of people who just want to have lunch all day.

He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.

People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.

It’s a very specific sort of loneliness.

a time comes in every man’s life when he decides what sort of man he’s going to be: the kind who lets other people walk all over him, or not.

A time like that comes for every man, when he chooses what sort of man he wants to be. And if you don’t know the story, you don’t know the man.

but all people at root are time optimists. We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like “if.”

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of