Maria

“She's the first person to smile at me today.
The first to make me feel wanted.
Understood.
I blink back tears.
It's unknown how many students' lives
librarians have saved
by welcoming loners at lunch.”
― Lisa Fipps, Starfish

“Everyone. The church, the parish, politicians, people who believed in God, people who didn’t believe in God… she made it her job to defend the weakest: the homeless, migrants, even criminals. Because somewhere in the Bible Jesus says something like: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was homeless and you looked after me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ And then He says something like, what we do for the weakest among us, we also do for Him. And she took everything so damn literally, my wife. That’s why she kept causing trouble.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“she also felt like telling him that the economic system she has devoted her life to working in is the world’s biggest problem right now, because we made the system too strong. We forgot how greedy we are, but above all we forgot how weak we are. And now it’s crushing us.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“But if there’s one thing modern life and the Internet have taught us, it’s that you should never expect to win a discussion simply because you’re right.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People