Random Chronicles > Random Chronicles's Quotes

“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

“Phoebe didn't think she'd end up being a woman like this. But if the last few years have taught her anything, it's that you really can't ever know who you are going to become.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“And maybe that’s it: You do things in the moment for the person you hope you might be two years from now.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“I didn’t want to be saved from myself. Nobody does! All we want is permission to stand there naked and be our damned selves.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“Nobody was ever really watching, except Phoebe. Phoebe was the only person waiting in the dark to condemn herself for every single thing when the day was over.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

“. . . One of the most human things about anxiety is that we try to cure chaos with chaos. Someone who has got themselves into a catastrophic situation rarely retreats from it, we're far more inclined to carry on even faster. We've created lives where we can watch other people crash into the wall but still hope that somehow we're going to pass straight through it. The closer we get, the more confidently we believe that some unlikely solution is miraculously going to save us, while everyone watching us is just waiting for the crash."

. . . So Zara asked, without any sarcasm, "Have you learned any theories about why people behave like that, then?"

"Hundreds," The psychologist smiled.

"Which one do you believe?"

"I believe the one that says that if you do it for long enough, it can become impossible to tell the difference between flying and falling.”
― 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

“That's the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people's.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it. She tried to be one of them. She told herself that was why you should always be nice to other people, even idiots, because you never know how heavy their burden is.”
― 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

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

“Expensive restaurants have bigger gaps between the tables. First class on airplanes has no middle seats. Exclusive hotels have separate entrances for guests staying in suites. The most expensive thing you can buy in the most densely populated places on the planet is distance.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Something my dad says...He says you end up marrying the one you don't understand. Then you spend the rest of your life trying.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“I guess it can’t be too often that two people can laugh and make love, too, make love because they are laughing, laugh because they’re making love. The love and the laughter come from the same place: but not many people go there”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“I'm going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.'
...
We sat there, side by side, on the old wooden bench, not saying anything. I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies, like children books hidden in the middle of dull, long books. The kind with no pictures or conversations.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“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