329 Quotes by Fredrik Backman

Someone who has got themselves into a catastrophic situation rarely retreats from it, we're far more inclines 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, more confidently we believe that some unlikely solution is miraculously going to save us, while everyone watching us is just waiting for the crash.

Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?""No.""You're never more important than you are then.

Because you've probably been depressed yourself, you've had days when you've been in terrible pain in places that don't show up in X-rays, when you can't find the words to explain it even to the people who love you.

Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound.

The years will allow them to meet in the middle, when the boys thoughts expand and grandpa’s contract.

But she was always wanting to do things. *Experience* everything. It was on that trip that I realized I couldn't live with her, because I haven't got the energy to keep experiencing things the whole time. I started longing for everyday life, all the boring stuff, but she hated being bored.

When Peter and Kira had their first child, Isak, Kira said to him, "This is what we are now. Everything else comes after this. First and foremost, we are parents!" Peter already knew that, of course. All parents know. It's not a voluntary process, it's an emotional assault; you become someone else's property the first time you hear your child cry. You belong to that little person now. Before everything else. So when something happens to your child, it never stops being your fault.

Kevin and Benji don’t think it odd, the way you don’t if something’s been going on your whole life.