Zach > Zach's Quotes

“Jesper shrugged again. He adjusted the buttons on his shirt, touched his thumbs to his revolvers. When he felt like this, mad and scattered, it was as if his hands had a life of their own. His whole body itched. He needed to get out of this room.
Wylan laid his hand on Jesper’s shoulder. “Stop.”
Jesper didn’t know if he wanted to jerk away or pull him closer.
“Just stop,” Wylan said. “Breathe.” Wylan’s gaze was steady.
Jesper couldn’t look away from that clear-water blue. He forced himself to still, inhaled, exhaled.
“Again,” Wylan said, and when Jesper opened his mouth to take another breath, Wylan leaned forward and kissed him. Jesper’s mind emptied. He wasn’t thinking of what had happened before or what might happen next. There was only the reality of Wylan’s mouth, the press of his lips, then the fine bones of his neck, the silky feel of his curls as Jesper cupped his nape and drew him nearer.
This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire. It was the spin of Makker’s Wheel. Jesper felt the pounding of his heart—or was it Wylan’s?—like a stampede in his chest, and the only thought in his head was a happy, startled, Oh.
Slowly, inevitably, they broke apart. “Wylan,” Jesper said, looking into the wide blue sky of his eyes, “I really hope we don’t die.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“That we do our best. We plant an apple tree today, even if we know the world is going to be destroyed tomorrow. We save those we can.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We give those we love nicknames, because love requires a word that belongs to us alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we're more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We're trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you're supposed to insert USB leads. We're looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We're doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine.
Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for single moment and then we were gone. I don't know who you are.
But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.
There'll be another one along tomorrow.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We are asleep until we fall in love.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Love is wanting you to exist.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We can't change the world, and a lot of the time we can't even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to...be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Only different people change the world,” Granny used to say. “No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“Elsa decides that even if people she likes have been shits on earlier occasions, she has to learn to carry on liking them. You’d quickly run out of people if you had to disqualify all those who at some point have been shits.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“I want someone to remember I existed. I want someone to know I was here.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“We want to be loved,’ ” quotes Britt-Marie. “ ‘Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.’ ”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“Grow up and be different and don’t let anyone tell you not to be different, because all superheroes are different.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“Granny and Elsa used to watch the evening news together. Now and then Elsa would ask Granny why grown-ups were always doing such idiotic things to each other. Granny usually answered that it was because grown-ups were generally people, and people are generally shits. Elsa countered that grown-ups were also responsible for a lot of good things in between all the idiocy – space exploration, the UN, vaccines and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the ‘not-a-shit’ side as one can.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises

“I wish you courage
I wish you rushing blood
A heart that beats too hard
Feelings that make everything too hard
Love that gets out of control
The most intense adventures
I hope you find your way out
I hope you’re the kind of person
Who gets a happy ending”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“The very finest thing you can give a child is somewhere to belong. The biggest thing you can have is being part of something.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners

“Nothing is easier for people who never do anything themselves than to criticize someone who actually makes an effort.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“You were never easy, darling difficult sulky you, never diplomatic. You might even have been easy to dislike at times. But no one, absolutely no one, would dare tell me you were hard to love.”
― Fredrik Backman, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

“Why are you holding my hand so tight, Grandpa?” the boy whispers
again.
“Because all of this is disappearing, Noahnoah. And I want to keep hold
of you longest of all.”
― Fredrik Backman, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

“Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“Culture isn't just what we encourage but what we allow to happen.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“It's so easy to get people to hate one another. That's what makes love so impossible to understand. Hate is so simple that it always ought to win. It's an uneven fight.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“Nothing weighs more than someone else’s belief in you.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“That’s all of life. All we can hope for. You mustn’t think about the fact that it might end, because then you live like a coward, you never love too much or sing too loudly. You have to take it for granted, the artist thinks, the whole thing: sunrises and slow Sunday mornings and water balloons and another person’s breath against your neck. That’s the only courageous thing a person can do.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends