Jay > Jay's Quotes

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“music has, quite literally, saved my life and, I believe, the lives of countless others. It provides company when there is none, understanding where there is confusion, comfort where there is distress, and sheer, unpolluted energy where there is a hollow shell of brokenness and fatigue. And”
― James Rhodes, Instrumental

“It amazes me how many people love being unhappy.”
― James Rhodes, Instrumental

“What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Kind," said the boy.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“What is the bravest thing you've ever said? asked the boy.
'Help,' said the horse.
'Asking for help isn't giving up,' said the horse. 'It's refusing to give up.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“What does a monster look like? Jam asked.

Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. "Monsters don't look like anything, doux-doux. That's the whole point. That's the whole problem.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Life is so damn, damn, damn tough sometimes that it's almost unbearable. Even if that's the way it's supposed to be.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“Everyone is a hundred different things, but in other people’s eyes we usually get the chance to be only one of them.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“The complicated thing about good and bad people alike is that most of us can be both at the same time.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“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

“What does it take to be a good parent? Not much. Just everything. Absolutely everything.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

“The most unbearable thing about death is that the world just goes on. Time doesn't care. The morning after the storm, the sun goes up as if it's mocking us, over a wrecked forest and a battered town.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?”
― Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures

“Tova has always felt more than a bit of empathy for the sharks, with their never-ending laps around the tank. She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.”
― Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures

“You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn't. It's the only thing that does not need to become at all. It matters only insofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn't require a future.”
― Rebecca Serle, In Five Years

“You are not wrong for loving what you do. You are lucky. Life doesn't hand everyone a passion in their profession.”
― Rebecca Serle, In Five Years

“More women are murdering people these days,” says Joyce. “If you ignore the context, it is a real sign of progress.”
― Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice

“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

“What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“Sometimes we create such powerful illusions, so that we do not get lost in the darkness.”
― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“Where there are bees there are flowers, and wherever there are flowers there is new life and hope.”
― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“Name - My beautiful boy.

Cause of death - This broken world.”
― Christy Lefteri, The Beekeeper of Aleppo