The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (The Hundred-Year-Old Man, #1)

by Jonas Jonasson

When life has gone into overtime it’s easy to take liberties, he thought, and he made himself comfortable in the seat.

Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be. That meant, among other things, that you didn’t make a fuss, especially when there was good reason to do so:

Allan thought it sounded unnecessary for the people in the seventeenth century to kill each other. If they had only been a little patient they would all have died in the end anyway.

Revenge is not a good thing, Allan warned him. Revenge is like politics: one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.

Priests and politicians were equally bad, Allan thought, and it didn’t make the slightest difference if they were communists, fascists, capitalists, or any other political persuasion. But he did agree with his father that reliable people didn’t drink fruit juice. And he agreed with his mother that you had to make sure you behaved, even if you had drunk a bit more than was wise.

Never try to outdrink a Swede, unless you happen to be a Finn or at least a Russian.

Allan had always reasoned about religion that if you couldn’t know for sure then there was no point in going around guessing.

People could do what they wanted, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.

Once you’ve reached a certain age, it is easier to sense when everything feels exactly right.

Life worked in such a way that right was not necessarily right, but rather what the person in charge said was right.