Barbs > Barbs's Quotes

“Because the people we argue with hardest of all are not the ones who are completely different from us, but the ones who are almost no different at all.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“This was a promise I really had no intention of keeping – modern life is 75 per cent cancelling plans and both parties feeling relieved”
― Bella Mackie, How to Kill Your Family

“It’s funny how you can hear a song your whole life and it’s just words and music. And then one day that same song can take on a whole new meaning and knock the breath out of you.”
― Hilarie Burton Morgan, The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm

“We must become friends before this coffee cools.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“The problem with this is that if we beat ourselves up after a mistake, we add shame onto the guilt and frustration that we already feel about our mistake. That guilt and frustration can be helpful in moving us forward, but shame...shame keeps us stuck. It's a paralyzing emotion. When we get caught in a shame spiral, we tend to make more of the same kinds of mistakes that caused us shame in the first place".”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“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

“Humans need reassurance, they need to know others survived in hard times. And unlike other species which do a better job of learning from their mistakes, humans require constant threats and reminders to be nice.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Imagine if all men took women seriously. Education would change. The workforce would revolutionize. Marriage counsellors would go out of business. Do you see my point?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“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

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

“Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don’t trust.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“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

“It’s such an odd thing, the way you can know someone so perfectly through what they read.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change - and change is what we're chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others' opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future. When you go home today, ask yourself what YOU will change. And then get started.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Because perhaps it's true what they say, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and uncontrollably for one simple reason, you're theirs. Your parents and siblings can love you for the rest of your life, too, for precisely the same reason.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?"

"No."

"You're never more important that you are then.”
― 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

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“We can never truly see into the hearts of others. When people get lost in their own worries they can be blind to the feelings of those most important to them.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Tales from the Cafe

“Something I strongly believe is that we mustn't allow the death of a person to be the cause of unhappiness. The reason for that is simple: if we let everyone who dies be a cause for unhappiness, that would mean people are being born to be unhappy. But the opposite in fact is true. People are always born for the sake of happiness.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“People’s true feelings are not in plain sight. The other person might not be thinking anything, but there is a tendency to just assume what the other is feeling without reaching out and asking.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others".”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“in the face of horror, ancient rituals regained their meaning”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Inevitably, with memory comes pain.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Regret comes in two flavors: actions taken and opportunities missed.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before We Forget Kindness

“The reason why a person lies is almost always more interesting than the lie itself”
― Alice Feeney, Rock Paper Scissors