My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. —Anton Ego

the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.

Imagination is the only thing that stops us from thinking about death every second.

Leonardo da Vinci, who said that art was never finished, only abandoned.

Frances Harper, who said that “every mother should be a true artist.”

Marcel Duchamp: “Art is completed by the viewer.”

Émile Zola’s words at him: “I would rather die of passion than of boredom!”

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

Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.’ ”

Tomas Transtromer: “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.”