Anna Rose > Anna's Quotes

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You miss the strangest things when you lose someone. Little things. Smiles. The way she turned over in her sleep. Even repainting a room for her.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“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

“All people at root are time optimists. We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“All roads lead to something you were predestined to do.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“They never had much, but they always had enough.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It is difficult to admit that one is wrong. Particularly when one has been wrong for a very long time.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else's future. And it wasn't as if Ove also died when Sonja left him. He just stopped living.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Because this was what Ove had learned: if one didn’t have anything to say, one had to find something to ask. If there was one thing that made people forget to dislike one, it was when they were given the opportunity to talk about themselves.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“I just wanted to know what it felt like to be someone you look at.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It's a strange thing, becoming an orphan at sixteen. To lose your family long before you've had time to create your own to replace it. It's a very specific sort of loneliness.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Maybe to her destiny was "something"; that was none of his business. But to him, destiny was "someone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Every human being needs to know what she's fighting for.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Because a time comes in every man's life when he decides what sort of man he's going to be: the kind who lets other people walk all over him, or not.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Love is a strange thing. It takes you by surprise.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Sorrow and loss are constant, but if we all had to go through our whole lives carrying them the whole time, we wouldn’t be able to stand it. The sadness would paralyze us. So in the end we just pack it into bags and find somewhere to leave it.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“And where was the world going if people couldn’t even write or brew a pot of coffee?”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“What sort of love is it if you hand someone over when it gets difficult?” she cries, her voice shaking with sorrow. “Abandon someone when there’s resistance? Tell me what sort of love that is!”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“when a person gives to another person it’s not just the receiver who’s blessed. It’s the giver.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“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.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it. She tried to be one of them. She told herself that was why you should always be nice to other people, even idiots, because you never know how heavy their burden is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People