Handling The Undead Quotes

“She had collided with an elk and died...At twenty-four minutes to eleven her heart had stopped pumping the blood around her body.

One single muscle in a single person's body. A speck of dust in time. And the world was dead. David stood next to her bed with his arms by his sides, the headache burning behind his forehead.

Here lay his whole future, everything good that he could even imagine would come from life. Here lay the last twelve years of his past. Everything gone; and time shrank to a single unbearable now.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead

“Reportern hade funnit sig i den ljusa världen och alltså var det meningslöst att prata med honom. Det fanns inga ord.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead

“Hon hade fått Gamecuben av Elvy på sin femtonde födelsedag. Det hade varit hetsiga diskussioner med Margareta, som hävdade att tevespelen gjorde att ungdomarna avskärmade sig från omvärlden, stängde av. Elvy trodde att hon hade rätt, och det var just därför hon köpt spelet.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead

“David and Eva kissed again, their eyes telegraphing something about how it would be later that night when they were alone. Then Eva took Magnus' hand and they walked off, waving one last time. David remained on the sidewalk, watching them.

What if I never see them again...

The usual fear gripped him. God had been too good to him, there'd been a mistake, he had got more than he deserved. Now it would all be taken away. Eva and Magnus disappeared around the corner and an impulse told him to run after them, stop them. Say, "Come on. Let's go home. We'll watch Shrek, we'll play Monopoly, we...can't let ourselves be separated."

The usual fears, but worse than usual.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist

“Elvy whispered, "Holy Virgin..." and did not dare to look. Because suddenly she understood what it meant, _tribulation, such was not since the beginning of the world_. It was what could be read in Mary's eyes. The suffering of a mother confronted with her dead child--and that child the sum of all goodness. Not simply the pain of watchin the child that you have nursed and cherished be tortured and executed, but the suffering, too, that there is a world in which such things happen.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead

“Three, four, ten, thirty multi-coloured little beings with backpacks ran down the stairs, Pieces of humanity, a mass to direct and discipline. Four hundred of them were stuffed into this building six hours a day, four hundred were let out again when those six hours were up.

Material.

But zoom in on one single child and there you had an upholder of the world. A child with a mother and father, grandparents, relatives and friends. A child whose existence is necessary for the proper functioning of many lives. Children are fragile, and carry so many lives on their frail shoulders. Fragile is their world, controlled by adults. Everything is fragile.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist

“Kära vän, alla ljuger på nåt sätt. Det är en förutsättning för att samhället ska hålla ihop. Att vi ljuger lite grann. Man kan se det som en form av hänsyn. Sanningen är på sätt och vis väldigt egoistisk.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead