Top 500 Fredrik Backman Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “I’m constantly reading a book with a missing page, and it’s always the most important one.”

— Fredrik Backman

202. “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

203. “Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for a single moment and then we were gone. I don’t know who you are. But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.”

— Fredrik Backman

204. “There will always be people who won’t understand his decision. Who will call him weak or dishonest or disloyal. They are probably people who live secure lives, who are surrounded by people who share their own opinions and only talk to people who reinforce their own worldview. It’s easy for them to judge him – it’s always easier to lecture other people about morality when you’ve never had to answer for anything yourself.”

— Fredrik Backman

205. “The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.”

— Fredrik Backman

206. “Because without music there can’t be any dreams, and without dreams there can’t be any fairy tales, and without fairy tales there can’t be any courage, and without courage no one would be able to bear any sorrows, and.”

— Fredrik Backman

207. “And we know that it’s very common for people suffering from depression to be afraid of feeling happy. Because even depression can be a sort of secure bubble, it can make you start to think, If I’m not unhappy, if I’m not angry – who am I then?”

— Fredrik Backman

208. “Feelings are complicated. Actions are simple.”

— Fredrik Backman

209. “All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”

— Fredrik Backman

210. “Elisabeth Zackell may have been right when she said that anyone who feels responsibility isn’t free. Because responsibility is a burden. Freedom is a pleasure.”

— Fredrik Backman

211. “He was my echo. Everything I do is quieter now,” she said to the other women in the closet.”

— Fredrik Backman

212. “People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and aching pain of the heart will “lessen as time passes,” but it isn’t true. 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

213. “Everyone I know with any sense has two families, the one they were given and the one they chose. You can’t do anything about the first, but you can damn well take responsibility for the second!”

— Fredrik Backman

214. “All the best people are different -look at superheroes. After all, if superpowers were normal, everyone would have them.”

— Fredrik Backman

215. “She was about to add that Harry Potter was also an orphan, and to be like Harry Potter in any way at all is actually the coolest thing there is, but she’s starting to realize that The Monster probably doesn’t read as much quality literature as one might hope.”

— Fredrik Backman

216. “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.”

— Fredrik Backman

217. “The teacher wanted us to write what we thought the meaning of life was once.” “What did you write?” “Company.” Grandpa closes his eyes. “That’s the best answer I’ve heard.” “My teacher said I had to write a longer answer.” “So what did you do?” “I wrote: Company. And ice cream.” Grandpa spends a moment or two thinking that over. Then he asks: “What kind of ice cream?” Noah smiles. It’s nice to be understood.”

— Fredrik Backman

218. “It was as if he didn’t want other people to talk to him, he was afraid that their chattering voices would drown out the memory of her voice.”

— Fredrik Backman

219. “Idiots can’t understand that non-idiots are done with a thought and already moving on to the next before they themselves have.”

— Fredrik Backman

220. “Tomorrow he will wake up, get out of bed, and start again.”

— Fredrik Backman

221. “People need bureaucracy, to give them time to think before they do something stupid.”

— Fredrik Backman

222. “They stamp the slush off their boots with autopilot eyes and answering-machine voices while they wait for their drug of choice – caffeine or nicotine or sugar – to kick in and render their bodies at least tolerably functional until the first break.”

— Fredrik Backman

223. “Spring arrives. It always finds us, in the end. The wind sweeps winter away, the trees rustle and birds start making a fuss, and nature suddenly crashes through with a deafening roar where the snow has swallowed every echo for months.”

— Fredrik Backman

224. “If you support Tottenham you always give more love than you get back... Tottenham is the worst kind of bad team, because they’re almost good. They always promise that they’re going to be fantastic. They make you hope. So you go on loving them and they carry on finding more and more innovative ways of disappointing you.”

— Fredrik Backman

225. “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. Apparently some monk called Francis had written as much in one of her books.”

— Fredrik Backman

226. “Kevin might be the star, but Benjamin Ovich is the heart of the team because Benji is like David: he’s prepared to do whatever it takes. So ever since he was small, the coach has drummed one single idea into him: “Don’t pay any attention to what people say, Benji. They’ll like us well enough when we start winning.”

— Fredrik Backman

227. “It’s never only a dog. It’s family.”

— Fredrik Backman

228. “God doesn’t protect people from knives, sweetheart. That’s why God gave us other people, so we can protect each other.”

— Fredrik Backman

229. “Soccer forces life to move on. There’s always a new match. A new season. There’s always a dream that everything can get better. It’s a game of wonders.”

— Fredrik Backman

230. “When Kira woke up the following morning, Peter explained the job to her in even simpler terms: “Everyone in Beartown has this burning passion for hockey. My job is to make sure no one catches on fire.” Kira kissed him on the forehead and told him he was an idiot.”

— Fredrik Backman

231. “Maybe all people have that feeling deep down, that your hometown is something you can never really escape, but can never really go home to, either. Because it’s not home anymore. We’re not trying to make peace with it. Not with the streets and bricks of it. Just with the person we were back then. And maybe forgive ourselves for everything we thought we would become and didn’t.”

— Fredrik Backman

232. “Life is so damn, damn, damn tough sometimes that it’s almost unbearable. Even if that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

— Fredrik Backman

233. “People say she’s gone mad, because that’s what people who know nothing about loneliness call it.”

— Fredrik Backman

234. “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.”

— Fredrik Backman

235. “Being married is easy, she usually thinks. You just pick an argument you’re really good at, then repeat it at least once a week for all eternity.”

— Fredrik Backman

236. “That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s.”

— Fredrik Backman

237. “The most unbearable thing about death is that the world just goes on. Time doesn’t care. The morning after the storm, the sun goes up as if it’s mocking us, over a wrecked forest and a battered town.”

— Fredrik Backman

238. “This sport demands only one thing from you. Your all.”

— Fredrik Backman

239. “When you’re young and in love you think the difficult part of being in a relationship is admitting when you need help, but when you’ve been married for half your life you know that the hardest thing is admitting that you really don’t: you don’t need anyone’s help to feel inadequate and a failure and worthless.”

— Fredrik Backman

240. “Above all the other words for love, there ought to be one for this: one that says how many times we’ve come close to losing each other but turn back and start again. One for the very smallest things, the inches, when we brush past each other in the kitchen instead of only almost doing it. Something that says I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it if you can’t bear me. I can’t bear it without you. They.”

— Fredrik Backman

241. “Eine der schrecklichen Auswirkungen der Trauer besteht darin, dass wir ihre Abwesenheit als Egoismus ansehen.”

— Fredrik Backman

242. “Because if a sufficient number of people are different, no one has to be normal.”

— Fredrik Backman

243. “But if there’s one thing modern life and the Internet have taught us, it’s that you should never expect to win a discussion simply because you’re right.”

— Fredrik Backman

244. “Deep down, in memories that we might prefer to suppress even from ourselves, a lot of us know that the difference between us and that man on the bridge is smaller than we might wish.”

— Fredrik Backman

245. “You’ll wake up soon. It’s Christmas Eve morning. And I loved you.”

— Fredrik Backman

246. “Unfairness is a far more natural state in the world than fairness.”

— Fredrik Backman

247. “Death is a slow drum. It counts every beat. We can’t haggle with it for more time.”

— Fredrik Backman

248. “You can always tell by the way people who love each other argue: the longer they’ve been together, the fewer words they need to start a fight.”

— Fredrik Backman

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

— Fredrik Backman

250. “You’re not scared. You’re just grieving. No one tells you humans that your sorrow feels like fear.”

— Fredrik Backman