Home > Work > Us Against You (Beartown, #2)
81 " It’s so easy to think that what we post online is like raising your voice in a living room when it’s actually more like shouting from the rooftops. "
― Fredrik Backman , Us Against You (Beartown, #2)
82 " Benji is running alone in another part of the forest. He finds new hiding places; he’s had a lot of practice over the years. He’s become a man who doesn’t take anything for granted; only children think certain things are self-evident: always having a best friend, for instance. Being allowed to be who we are. Being able to love who we want. Nothing is self-evident to Benji anymore; he just runs deeper into the forest until his brain is gasping for oxygen and he can no longer feel anything. Then he climbs up into a tree. And waits for the wind. "
83 " But children are the only people who don't have to take responsibility for anyone but themselves. The rest of us have to take responsibility for the things we cause to happen. You're a leader. People follow you. So frankly, if you can't take responsibility for the actions of your followers, that makes you nothing but a monster. "
84 " fear isn’t logical, the body reacts independently of the brain. "
85 " Men du är VÅR bögjävel "
86 " He says it the way he says everything: as if his brain is a coffee machine that someone has forgotten to put a coffeepot under, so his thoughts drip straight onto the hot plate beneath and spray everywhere. "
87 " Ramona, has a face that resembles the floorboards: life has left its mark on her like the chairs being dragged back and forth too many times over the years, "
88 " A marriage is the same: you don’t measure it by the holiday where you drink wine before lunch and have great sex and your biggest problem is that the sand is too hot and the sun is shining too brightly on the screen when you want to play games on your phone. You measure it from everyday life, at home, at its lowest level, from how you talk to each other and solve problems. "
89 " Nothing leads to nothing, he knows that much. "
90 " He wonders if his mom thought the same or if she saw equal amounts of herself in each of the children. There are so many things Bobo ought to have asked her. Death does that to us, it’s like a phone call, you always remember exactly what you should have said the moment you hang up. Now there’s just an answering machine full of memories at the other end, fragments of a voice that are getting weaker and weaker. "
91 " It's always the aggressors' feelings we have to defend. As if they're the ones who need our understanding. "
92 " The only reliable thing about Benji has always been that he's unreliable. But to everyone's surprise, nature managed to get through to him where people failed. When someone learns to be in the forest as a child, it's like gaining an extra language. The air talks here, and Benji understands. It's mournful and wild. "
93 " He’s invincibly strong and unbelievably fragile at one and the same time. "
94 " Being a mother can be like drying out the foundations of a house or mending a roof: it takes time, sweat, and money, and once it’s done everything looks exactly the same as it did before. "
95 " Isak taught Leo an unbearable number of things that day, without even existing. He taught him that love isn't enough. That's a terrible thing to learn when you're seven years old. Or at any age. "
96 " In the silence of the forest you don’t have to scream to be threatening. "
97 " How many lifetimes do we devote to their single one? What does it take to be a good parent? Not much. Just everything. Absolutely everything. "
98 " Sports are only sports until someone who doesn’t give a damn about sports has something to gain from them; then sports suddenly become economics. "
99 " We'll come running with you. Every mad sod here will come running with you all summer, if that's what it takes.' He's not joking. Lifa runs u and down along the road beside Amat that night until he collapses, and after Amat has carried his friend home on his back, Zacharias starts running in his place. When he can't run anymore, other kids show up... He had no team. So they gave him an army. "
100 " childhoods are like soap bubbles; you get only a few seconds to enjoy them. "