The Answer Is No

by Fredrik Backman

How well has all this worked out for you, dear reader, so far? Instead of falling in love, have you tried to not do that? It really saves a lot of time.

Best to be like dill, Lucas has concluded. Not like basil, the most anxious and ingratiating herb, but also not like cilantro, that conflict-seeking lunatic. Be dill. Nobody cares about dill. Or nobody cared about dill. Not until the whole frying pan thing.

I’m crying lmfao

Being smart is the worst thing one can be in modern society. All it ever means is more work.

“I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of!”

BYE LMFAOOOOO

because the truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem.

The lunatics are just trying to find a little thing to give their lives meaning, Lucas. Just like the rest of us. They’re just trying to be happy.”

“I’m . . . no expert. But I think most people who want to be happy try to add things to their lives. But really what maybe they should be doing is taking something away.”

“You’re fortunate, Lucas. You view loneliness as taking people away. But for most of us, loneliness is just adding more loneliness.”

But then again, Lucas has never loved a cat, so what does he really know about life?

I miss my cats </3

Then they stand in silence, the three people, a breath away but with whole lives between them.

That it was due to . . . the modernization of society. It can’t be stopped, can it, the modernization?

Do not collect junk in your hearts. You can make yourself happy if you don’t let others make you unhappy.

Love isn’t powerful enough. But spite? Spite can change the world.

Lucas is happy. It’s not as hard as one might think to become, the hard part is just to keep being it.