Lets > Lets's Quotes

“The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. 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

“Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

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

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

“Boats that stay in the harbor are safe, sweetheart, but that's not what boats were built for.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“You don't have to like all children. Just one. And children don't need the world's best parents, just their own parents. To be perfectly honest with you, what they need most of the time is a chauffeur.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“When you're a child you long to be an adult and decide everything for yourself, but when you're an adult you realize that's the worst part of it.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“It's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Lembrei que quando eu aprendi a ler entrei em desespero, porque descobri que não era mais possível olhar as palavras sem ler. Tentei muitas vezes, queria de volta os desenhos-letras jogados pelas ruas. Foi uma lição sem volta. Tudo o que as palavras dissessem me tornei obrigada a ouvir. Fico pensando quantas coisas não vou poder nunca mais deixar de saber.”
― Mariana Salomão Carrara, Se Deus me Chamar Não Vou

“My advice is, if he’s worried about his reputation, don’t rape anyone.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“What she needs are stories.
Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue