Karthik Duddu

“Shivers heaved out a sigh. “Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those … you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?”

“Idiots?”

He looked sideways at her. “It was a different one I had in mind.”

“Optimists.”

“That’s the one. I’m an optimist.”

“How’s it working out for you?”

“Not great, but I keep hoping.”

“That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Best Served Cold

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove