Wafaa Darwich

“All his childhood the artist had seen adults destroy their surroundings, some with violence and others with silence, sometimes with clenched fists and always with empty bottles. Children have two worlds, the one they have been given and the one they can dream about, but not even the artist had enough imagination to believe it was possible to paint his way out of there. It would take a really, really big idiot to dream anything as grand as that. Thank goodness he had one of those.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“I’m not worried you’re going to die. I’m worried about you being dead. I’m worried about being alive without you.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“It is probably never easy for anyone to return to the place where they grew up, there’s no way to forget who you are there, no matter how hard you’ve tried to become someone else.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that’s pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends