329 Quotes by Fredrik Backman

You can’t cultivate that sort of friendship, it only grows in the wild.

Remember, a good friend helps you move, but a great friend helps you move a dead body.

She had been to sea with sailors, in the desert with soldiers, in prison with inmates, and in hospitals with sinners and atheists. She liked a drink and could tell dirty jokes, no matter who she was with. If anyone even asked what God would think about that, she always replied: I don't think we agree about everything, but I have a feeling He knows I'm doing the best I can. And I think maybe He knows I work for Him, because I try to help people.

But children are the only people who don't have to take responsibility for anyone but themselves. The rest of us have to take responsibility for the things we cause to happen. You're a leader. People follow you. So frankly, if you can't take responsibility for the actions of your followers, that makes you nothing but a monster.

You can force people to obey you, but you can never force them to follow you. If you want them to play for you, they have to love you.

I don't have the words to describe it, but it was like going on a journey with someone. Where didn't matter. To outer space. It went on for a long time. I started to fold down the corners of pages when there was a bit I really liked, and he started to write little comments in the margins. Just the odd word. 'Beautiful.' 'True.' That's the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people's.

The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moments before everything fell apart.

You can't start drilling after dark, everyone knows that. He'd have to turn on all the lights and no one could say when they'd be turned off again.

That's the only thing someone who definitely wants to live and someone who definitely wants to die have in common: if you're going to jump off something, you need to be pretty damn sure of the height.