Beartown (Beartown, #1)

by Fredrik Backman

There are two things that are particularly good at reminding us how old we are: children and sports.

Death does strange, incomprehensible things to loving souls.

Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that’s always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there’s always someone who’s freezing.

Religion is something between you and other people; it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith… that’s just between you and God.

People sometimes say that sorrow is mental but longing is physical. One is a wound, the other an amputated limb, a withered petal compared to a snapped stem.

almost everyone regards themselves as a good team player, but that very few indeed understand what that really means. It’s often said that human beings are pack animals, and that thought is so deeply embedded that hardly anyone is prepared to admit that many of us are actually really rubbish at being in groups. That we can’t cooperate, that we’re selfish, or, worst of all, that we’re the sort of people other people just don’t like. So we keep repeating: “I’m a good team player.” Until we believe it ourselves, without actually being prepared to pay the price.

Jokes are powerful like that, they can be both inclusive and exclusive. Can create both an Us and a Them.

“You have to frighten the little buggers to get them to listen!” Peter said nothing. But in the car on the way home he turned to Leo and explained: “When I was little, my dad used to hit me if I spilled my milk, Leo. That didn’t teach me not to spill things. It just made me scared of milk. Remember that.”