Brian > Brian's Quotes

“Big secrets make small men of us, especially when we’re the men others have to keep secrets from.”
― 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

“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

“Anything that grows closely enough to what it loves will eventually share the same roots. We can talk about loss, we can treat it and give it time, but biology still forces us to live according to certain rules: plants that are split down the middle don't heal, they die.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Because if a sufficient number of people are different, no one has to be normal.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

“You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are."
"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you."
"What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?"
"Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“... just because [butterflies'] lives were short didn't mean they were tragic... See, they have a beautiful life.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“But just because I’ll forget it some tomorrow doesn’t mean that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“It was right and wrong both. Love does as it undoes. It goes after, with equal tenacity, joy and heartbreak.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“I want to be a wobbly people pole that tries to bring joy into the world, not one that takes joy from it.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“I remember Guillermo saying the cracks and breaks were the best and most interesting parts of the work in my portfolio. Perhaps it’s the same with people and their cracks and breaks.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“We are, each one of us for the other, a key to a door that otherwise would've remained locked forever”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Normal's overrated.”
― Lisa Genova, Left Neglected

“Relationships are never fifty-fifty. Sometimes they are sixty-forty, sometimes eighty-twenty. You’ll be the eighty sometimes, you’ll be the twenty others. The key is to accept and be okay with that.”
― Harlan Coben, Win

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Love wins, love always wins.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“The path to success is never linear”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Perseverance is not just about 'sticking with it'; sometimes it is about solving a problem by thinking laterally.”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Fear is excitement without breathing”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Other people's opinions are not worth losing sleep over.”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Worry is a prayer for bad things to happen.”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Winning just feels like a natural extension of imagining that win.”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“It is not about striving to be more - it is about caring for yourself as you are. This, in turn, will always lead to greater resilience and happiness.”
― Tom Daley, Coming Up for Air

“Every person on this earth needs just one person who sees them and roots for them. Deeply, truly. One person. It's what we all need to get through. The more the merrier but let's start with one.”
― Selma Blair, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up

“Nothing good in life can be maintained without practice”
― Josh Peck, Happy People Are Annoying

“It was like I'd spent my entire life trying to reason with a peanut allergy.”
― Josh Peck, Happy People Are Annoying

“You are ethe fish you're trying to catch, you are the love of your life, you're everything you've been searching for.”
― Josh Peck, Happy People Are Annoying

“Too much sunshine brings a desert.”
― Josh Peck, Happy People Are Annoying