Justin Barrow > Justin's Quotes

“There wasn't anyone like her in all the world, and for some reason, she chose me. She loved me.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“We don't need you because that implies you had to fix something in us. We were never broken. We want you, Wallace. Every piece. Every part. Because we're family.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“we're here to make sure they see that life isn't always about living. There are many parts to it, and it continues on, even after death. It's beautiful, even when it hurts.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“You aren't Apollo, who helped Hugo to breathe when his lungs collapsed in his chest.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“This is what you do when you have a family. You get up when it's still dark outside and you go to work so the people you love can have a better life. Even when you're sick or tired and don't want to.”
― Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman

“Maybe that's what grieving is all about: never forgetting what we've lost.”
― Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman

“Innocence once lost, can never be regained. Darkness, once gazed upon, can never be lost.”
― Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman

“...like a thunderstorm in a world of gentle breezes.”
― S.A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland

“Maybe, she wonders, taking in his warmth, maybe the key isn't getting rid of the crazy. Maybe, it's finding someone just as broken, who understands.”
― Sam Holland

“She knows what she's doing is destroying her, piece by piece. But it's punishment for being such a fuck-up. Punishment for not being normal.”
― Sam Holland

“Inside she feels like a collection of tiny pieces, fractured and broken. So, why shouldn't the outside look the same?”
― Sam Holland

“The story of our lives unfolds only once,
and each time a page is turned,
we force ourselves into knowing
that we can never edit or rewrite
our past.

We move closer and closer to an ending.
And we can only hope
that when we read ourselves,
the story will unfold lucidly enough
to teach us something.”
― Shane Koyczan

“Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“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

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

“All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.”
― 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

“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“What an uncomfortable, terrible source of shame it is for the world that the victim is so often the one left with the most empathy for others.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again. Even if you keep them for the rest of your life, it’s never the same as it was then.”
― 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

“The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washed through them, knocking them off their feet. It's incomprehensible because there's nothing to compare it to. It's like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who's lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying.”
― 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

“One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don't turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“It doesn't take long to persuade each other to stop seeing a person as a person. And when enough people are quiet for long enough, a handful of voices can give the impression that everyone is screaming.”
― 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, there's always someone who's freezing.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown