Reader > Reader's Quotes

“The price of freedom is high — far higher than that of slavery. And it is not paid in gold, nor in blood, nor in the most noble sacrifices, but in cowardice, in prostitution, in treachery, and in everything that is rotten in the human soul.”
― Curzio Malaparte, The Skin

“I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.”
― Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

“It is quite possible for a work of literature to operate as a war machine upon its epoch.”
― Monique Wittig

“Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.”
― Graham Greene

“Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.”
― Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.”
― Roberto Bolano

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
― Susan Sontag

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“She’s fifteen, above the age of consent, and he’s seventeen, but he’s still “the boy” in every conversation. She’s “the young woman”.

Words are not small things.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Religion is something between you and other people; it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith . . . that’s just between you and God.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Bitterness can be corrosive. It can rewrite your memories as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“There are few words that are harder to explain than "loyalty." It's always regarded as a positive characteristic, because a lot of people would say that many of the best things people do for each other occur precisely because of loyalty. The only problem is that many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“For the perpetrator, rape lasts just a matter of minutes. For the victim, it never stops.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Humanity has many shortcomings, but none is stronger than pride.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that’s always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone,”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community?

It is the sum total of our choices.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“A simple truth, repeated as often as it is ignored, is that if you tell a child it can do absolutely anything, or that it can’t do anything at all, you will in all likelihood be proven right. *”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“We love winners, even though they’re very rarely particularly likeable people. They’re almost always obsessive and selfish and inconsiderate. That doesn’t matter. We forgive them. We like them while they’re winning.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“We become what we are told we are.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“A long marriage is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that most people in one sometimes ask themselves: 'Am I still married because I'm in love, or just because I can't be bothered to let anyone else get to know me this well again?”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“That wears a person down in the end. It’s not always obvious, because the people around a bullied child assume that he or she must get used to it after a while. Never. You never get used to it. It burns like fire the whole time. It’s just that no one knows how long the fuse is, not even you.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“This sport demands only one thing from you. Your all.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“You can still love something without loving everything about it".”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Death does strange, incomprehensible things to loving souls.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown