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101 " That wears a person down in the end. It’s not always obvious, because the people around a bullied child assume that he or she must get used to it after a while. Never. You never get used to it. It burns like fire the whole time. It’s just that no one knows how long the fuse is, not even you. "
― Fredrik Backman , Beartown (Beartown, #1)
102 " We become what we are told we are. "
103 " A long marriage is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that most people in one sometimes ask themselves: 'Am I still married because I'm in love, or just because I can't be bothered to let anyone else get to know me this well again? "
104 " They will be scared to touch her, even the ones who believe her, because they don't want to risk getting hit by shrapnel when she detonates. "
105 " Big secrets make small men of us, especially when we’re the men others have to keep secrets from. "
106 " It's always easier to lecture other people about morality when you've never had to answer for anything yourself. "
107 " Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it. Values is the fact that we trust each other. That we love each other.” David thought about that for a long while before asking: “What about culture, then?” Sune looked more serious, choosing his words carefully. In the end he said: “For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. "
108 " But isolating yourself happens faster than you might think: the days blur together when you live more on the inside than outside... "
109 " The only way to stop being afraid of the darkness out there is to find a darkness inside yourself that's bigger. "
110 " That's how wars start. One side protects itself, so the other side has to protect itself even more, and then we start swapping our own fear with their threats. And then we start firing at each other. "
111 " So she bowed her head and devoted herself to Beartown’s real traditional sports: shame and silence. "
112 " Because in the end that's all anyone can ask of another person. That we are prepared to admit that we don't know everything. "
113 " Adri has seen war, she’s seen suffering, but you never get used to it. You never know what to say to a four-year-old who hurts and thinks that’s normal, because life has never shown her anything else. "
114 " You can still love something without loving everything about it". "
115 " If Peter has learned one thing about human nature during all his years in hockey, it’s that almost everyone regards themselves as a good team player, but that very few indeed understand what that really means. "
116 " Fighting isn't hard. It's the starting and stopping that are hard. Once you're actually fighting, it happens more or less instinctively. The complicated thing about fighting is daring to throw the first punch, and then, once you've won, refraining from throwing the vey last one. "
117 " People sometimes say that sorrow is mental but longing is physical. One is a wound, the other an amputated limb, a withered petal compared to a snapped stem. "
118 " No one ever said life was going to be easy.” Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that’s always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there’s always someone who’s freezing. "
119 " A team didn’t mean anything if you couldn’t depend on each other. That’s both a big and a small thing. Knowing that there are people who will never abandon you. "
120 " One of all the terrible effects of grief is that we interpret its absence as egotism. It’s impossible to explain what you have to do in order to carry on after a funeral, how to put the pieces of a family back together again, how to live with the jagged edges. So what do you end up asking for? You ask for a good day. One single good day. A few hours of amnesia. "