The Answer Is No

by Fredrik Backman

Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them? More than anything people are supposed to pretend to be happy on the internet so that other people are reminded of how unhappy they themselves are by comparison. Humanity has a system.

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.

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

Pad thai without peanuts is like buying a balloon and just getting the air.

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

For a short moment, Lucas thinks that this strange feeling he is experiencing is a fever. Maybe he’s coming down with a cold? But then he realizes it’s something much, much worse. It’s empathy.

Don’t look on the internet for someone who is exactly like you. Look for someone who isn’t. Love is not to never fight. Love is always making up.

Lucas is happy. It’s not as hard as one might think to become, the hard part is just to keep being it. It’s hard because it’s so easy to get in your head that if you are to be happy, you have to be happy exactly all of the time. And who in the world has the energy for that? Happiness can be exhausting. Honestly, it’s most often enough to just not be the opposite.

If you ask people what they think, they start thinking, and that’s how wars start.