Emma

“And after all those hours in the locker room, all those nights on the team bus, all the conversations and all the jokes and the blood, sweat, and tears, the boy didn’t dare tell his coach his biggest secret.
That’s betrayal. David knows it’s a huge betrayal. There’s no other way to explain how much a grown man must have failed as a person if such a warrior of a boy could believe that his coach would be less proud of him if he were gay.
David hates himself for not being better than his dad. That’s the job of sons.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“That may have been how they survived, Kira realizes: thanks to their ability not to fall apart at the same time.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“She was fifteen and had access to the Internet; she already knew that the world is a cruel place if you’re a girl. Her parents couldn’t imagine that this could happen, but Maya simply hadn’t expected it to happen to her.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community?

It is the sum total of our choices.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown