Beartown (Beartown, #1)

by Fredrik Backman

That takes the rest of each day. Hockey is never satisfied being part of your life, it wants to be all of it.

And there’s one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck.” It’s easy for a child to fall in love with something if they’re told that they can be best at it, as long as they want it enough.

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

No one raises their voice in this house and no one ever lowers it either—all communication has had its emotions amputated.

All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.

One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don’t turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are.

We become what we are told we are. Ana has always been told that she’s wrong.

“For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit.”

“That most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”