Further to this, One has the cat's resentful stares to contend with. Something in its eyes reminds him of the way Sonja used to look at him.

— Fredrik Backman

Grow up and be different and don’t let anyone tell you not to be different, because all superheroes are different.

— Fredrik Backman

Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.

— Fredrik Backman

He had never heard anything quite as amazing as that voice. She talked as if she was continuously on the verge of breaking into giggles. And when she giggled she sounded the way One imagined champagne bubbles would have sounded if they were capable of laughter.

— Fredrik Backman

He is wearing a rugby shirt with numbers and a little man on a horse on his chest. Kent has told Elsa that this sort of shirt costs more than a thousand kronor, and Granny always used to say that those sorts of shirts were a good thing, because the horse functioned as a sort of manufacturer’s warning that the shirt was highly likely to be transporting a Muppet.

— Fredrik Backman

He was never able to properly explain what happened to him that day. But he stopped being happy.

— Fredrik Backman

He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced.

— Fredrik Backman

Humanity has many shortcomings, but none is stronger than pride.

— Fredrik Backman

I just mean ... damn ... this might sound a bit crazy, but sometimes you can't help wondering if we don't take all this a bit too seriously. If we aren't putting too much pressure on the juniors. They're not really much more than ... kids."..." That depends on what we want from the kids. And what the kids want from hockey.

— Fredrik Backman

In Mamas, fairy tales are still produced around the clock, lovingly handmade one by one, and only the very, very finest of them are exported. Most are only told once, and then they fall flat on the ground, but the best and most beautiful of them rise from the lips of their tellers after the last words have been spoken, and then slowly hover off over the heads of the listeners, like small, shimmering paper lanterns.

— Fredrik Backman