Top 500 Fredrik Backman Quotes (2026 Update)
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451. “All children are victims of their parents’ childhoods, because all adults try to give their kids what they themselves enjoyed or lacked.”

— Fredrik Backman

452. “When it comes to terror, reality’s got nothing on the power of the imagination.”

— Fredrik Backman

453. “You don’t fool me, darling,“she said with a playful little smile and crept into his big arms. “You’re dancing on the inside, Ove, when no one’s watching. And I’ll always love you for that. Whether you like it or not.”

— Fredrik Backman

454. “Everything seems obvious in hindsight!”

— Fredrik Backman

455. “You don’t have to like all children. Just one. And children don’t need the world’s best parents, just their own parents. To be perfectly honest with you, what they need most of the time is a chauffeur.”

— Fredrik Backman

456. “Life is a weird thing. We spend all our time trying to manage different aspects of it, yet we are still largely shaped by things that happen beyond our control.”

— Fredrik Backman

457. “Because he was always the sort of person who stood in the way, the sort who protected, the sort who ran. He always thought he was the bad guy in all stories, the real heroes always do, that’s why stories about boys like him never end with them growing old.”

— Fredrik Backman

458. “It took chaos to set him free, loneliness to stop him being alone.”

— Fredrik Backman

459. “Well, then. Let’s skip the pleasantries. You know why I’m here?” Ramona looks curious. “No, but I bet you’ve brought some gold with you. Tails has brought frankincense. And there’s a third wise man standing outside the door with his pants stuffed full of myrrh. Is that more or less right?”

— Fredrik Backman

460. “When you’ve been stuck with each other long enough it can seem like there’s no difference between no longer arguing and no longer caring.”

— Fredrik Backman

461. “That’s always the way with sons of fathers who liked whisky a little too much: you either drink it all the time or not at all. There’s no in-between in some families.”

— Fredrik Backman

462. “It’s only a game. Everyone who plays it gets told that from time to time. A lot of people try to tell themselves that it’s true, but it’s complete nonsense. No one in this town would have been the same if that game hadn’t existed.”

— Fredrik Backman

463. “But the universe gave you both Noah. He’s the bridge between you. That’s why we get the chance to spoil our grandchildren, because by doing that we’re apologizing to our children.”

— Fredrik Backman

464. “That’s the only thing someone who definitely wants to live and someone who definitely wants to die have in common: if you’re going to jump off something, you need to be pretty damn sure of the height.”

— Fredrik Backman

465. “It doesn’t take long to persuade each other to stop seeing a person as a person. And when enough people are quiet for long enough, a handful of voices can give the impression that everyone is screaming.”

— Fredrik Backman

466. “All marriages have their bad sides, because people have weaknesses. If you live with another human being you learn to handle these weaknesses in a variety of ways. For instance, you might take the view that weaknesses are a bit like heavy pieces of furniture, and based on this you must learn to clean around them. To maintain the illusion.”

— Fredrik Backman

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

— Fredrik Backman

468. “Parents are defined by their mistakes.” Do you think this statement is true?”

— Fredrik Backman

469. “But perhaps, though, you’ve been in love? Almost everyone has, after all. And love can make you do quite a lot of ridiculous things. Getting married, for instance. Having children, playing happy families, and having a happy marriage. Or you might think that, anyway. Not happy, perhaps, but plausible.”

— Fredrik Backman

470. “I’ll bring you to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, and we’ll eat dreams and dance and laugh and cry and be brave and forgive people, and we’ll fly with the cloud animals and Granny will be sitting on a bench in Miasmas, smoking and waiting for us.”

— Fredrik Backman

471. “The older man thinks the most important thing is for a police officer to do the right thing, the younger thinks it’s more important to do things correctly.”

— Fredrik Backman

472. “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” The mountaineer replied in bemusement, as if the question was ridiculous and the answer obvious, “Because it’s there.” Kira understood then, because why had she wanted to go to university when no one else in her family had been? Why had she chosen law when everyone had told her it would be too hard? Why? To find out if she could do it. Because she wanted to climb that damn mountain. Because it was there.”

— Fredrik Backman

473. “Sami went to town to protect someone who doesn’t deserve it, and Britt-Marie is getting ready to go home for the same reason. Because if we don’t forgive those we love, then what is left? What is love if it’s not loving our lovers even when they don’t deserve it?”

— Fredrik Backman

474. “What does it take to be a good parent? Not much. Just everything. Absolutely everything.”

— Fredrik Backman

475. “It’s just that Sune is no longer sure that’s all a hockey team should consist of: boys who never lose.”

— Fredrik Backman

476. “He never understood why she chose him. She loved abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man filled entirely with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved in his pockets. She danced.”

— Fredrik Backman

477. “All the time he was growing up, the only thing he wanted was for life to speed up, and now all he wants is for it to slow down. For the clocks to stop, for Maya never to grow up.”

— Fredrik Backman

478. “You can love something without loving everything about it. You don’t have to feel embarrassed about not being proud. That applies to hockey, but it also applies to friends.”

— Fredrik Backman

479. “Then Grandpa starts to cry, silently and tearlessly, so that his grandson won’t realize.”

— Fredrik Backman

480. “Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But no other boy had gone the wrong way on the train for hours every day just because he liked sitting next to her while she spoke.”

— Fredrik Backman

481. “But sorrow is unreliable in that way. When people don’t share it there’s a good chance that it will drive them apart instead.”

— Fredrik Backman

482. “Mom. You taught me that I don’t have to have dreams. I can have goals.”

— Fredrik Backman

483. “Promise you won’t hate me when you find out who I’ve been.”

— Fredrik Backman

484. “I’ve done what I can to teach you to never feel threatened by strong women. I married the strongest one I’ve ever met.”

— Fredrik Backman

485. “Elsa heard one of the doctors at Mum’s hospital saying that Granny “could start a fight in an empty room,” but when Elsa told Granny she just looked miffed and said, “What if it was the room that started it?”

— Fredrik Backman

486. “And Ove’s wife does what she always does: nods and agrees that Ove is probably right. Then she goes around all winter sneakily turning up the radiators.”

— Fredrik Backman

487. “It’s very difficult not to love someone who can hear you say something as horrible as that and still be on your side.”

— Fredrik Backman

488. “There are people who say that children don’t behave the way adults tell them to, but the way they see adults behave. Perhaps that’s true. But children live the way adults tell them to a fair bit as well.”

— Fredrik Backman

489. “Nothing unites a group of strangers more effectively than the opportunity to come together and sigh at a hopeless case.”

— Fredrik Backman

490. “But, dear God, you haven’t lacked a role model. All your best qualities come from the fact that you’ve been raised in a house full of women.”

— Fredrik Backman

491. “We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow.”

— Fredrik Backman

492. “If a human being closes her eyes hard enough and for long enough, she can remember pretty well everything that has made her happy.”

— Fredrik Backman

493. “I want you to always remember that you can become whatever you want to become, but that’s nowhere near as important as knowing that you can be exactly who you are. I hope I was just the dysfunctional prototype. I hope you tell me a million times over what an idiot I am.”

— Fredrik Backman

494. “My mom always says I should never apologize for myself. Never say sorry for being good at something.”

— Fredrik Backman

495. “You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,” she said to him once, when he asked her why she had to be so upbeat the whole time.”

— Fredrik Backman

496. “How the heck are you supposed to have a reasonable conversation with someone who buys a BMW?”

— Fredrik Backman

497. “When he left her she wept so hard that she couldn’t breathe. Her body was never really the same after that, she curled up and never quite unfurled again.”

— Fredrik Backman

498. “So when a fat lady who looks like she’s combed her hair with a toaster starts reading poems, Elsa thinks it’s just about enough and she pushes her way out between the pews.”

— Fredrik Backman

499. “We always remember more sharply than anything else, the last happy moment before everything fell apart.”

— Fredrik Backman

500. “He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”

— Fredrik Backman