Vee

“Can I ask something?” Louisa asks, then asks immediately: “How do you cope with death?” It’s Christian’s mother who answers: “It’s art that helps me cope. Because art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death. That we create and paint and dance and fall in love, that’s our rebellion against eternity. Everything beautiful is a shield. Vincent van Gogh wrote: ‘I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.’ ” “It’s cool that we happened at all,” Louisa whispers. “Something like that,” the mother smiles.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“He was good at seeing beauty in everything, that happens if you’re no good at seeing it in yourself.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Being a parent is so strange, all our children's pain belongs to us, but so does their joy.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“It is an act of violence when an adult yells at a child, all adults know that deep down, because all adults were once little. Yet we still do it. Time after time, we fail at being human beings.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends