A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. 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. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You miss the strangest things when you lose someone. Little things. Smiles. The way she turned over in her sleep. Even repainting a room for her.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Now you listen to me," says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door. "You've given birth to two children and quite soon will be squeezing out a third. You've come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense. You've learned a new language and got yourself an education and you're holding together a family of obvious incompetents. And I'll be damned if I've seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now....I'm not asking for brain surgery. I'm asking you to drive a car. It's got an accelerator, a brake and a clutch. Some of the greatest twits in world history have sorted out how it works. And you will as well." And then he utters seven words, which Parvaneh will always remember as the loveliest compliment he'll ever give her. "Because you are not a complete twit.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove feels an instinctive skepticism towards all people taller than six feet; the blood can’t quite make it all the way up to the brain.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“A job well done is a reward in its own right,” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Because this was what Ove had learned: if one didn’t have anything to say, one had to find something to ask. If there was one thing that made people forget to dislike one, it was when they were given the opportunity to talk about themselves.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Of all the imaginable things he most misses about her, the thing he really wishes he could do again is hold her hand in his.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It is difficult to admit that one is wrong. Particularly when one has been wrong for a very long time.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You have to love me twice as much now," she said. And then Ove lied to her for the second - and last - time: he said that he would. Even though he knew it wasn't possible for him to love her anymore than he already did.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It's a strange thing, becoming an orphan at sixteen. To lose your family long before you've had time to create your own to replace it. It's a very specific sort of loneliness.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“You're the funniest thing she knows. That's why she always draws you in color.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“And that laughter of hers, which, for the rest of his life, would make him feel as if someone was running around barefoot on the inside of his breast.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. 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. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps. Afternoons in the sun with someone's hand clutched in one's own. The fragrance of flowerbeds in fresh bloom. Sundays in a cafe. Grandchildren, perhaps. One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else's future.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove has been a grumpy old man since the first day of second grade” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He can’t understand people who long to retire. How can anyone spend their whole life longing for the day when they become superfluous? Wandering about, a burden on society, what sort of man would ever wish for that? Staying at home, waiting to die. Or even worse: waiting for them to come and fetch you and put you in a home. Being dependent on other people to get to the toilet. Ove can’t think of anything worse. His wife often teases him, says he’s the only man she knows who’d rather be laid out in a coffin than travel in a mobility service van.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Every human being needs to know what she's fighting for. That was what they said. And she fought for what was good. For the children she never had. And Ove fought for her. Because that was the only thing in this world he really knew.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Because a time comes in every man's life when he decides what sort of man he's going to be: the kind who lets other people walk all over him, or not.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He'd discovered that he liked houses. Maybe mostly because they were understandable. They could be calculated and drawn on paper. They did not leak if they were made water tight, they did not collapse if they were properly supported. Houses were fair, they gave you what you deserved. Which, unfortunately, was more than one could say about people.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“That was why he had always liked mathematics. There were right or wrong answers there. Not like the other hippie subjects they tried to trick you into doing at school, where you could “argue your case.” As if that was a way of concluding a discussion: checking who knew more long words. Ove wanted what was right to be right, and what was wrong to be wrong.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove was, well, Ove was Ove. Something the people around her also kept telling Sonja. He’d been a grumpy old man since he started elementary school, they insisted. And she could have someone so much better. Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But he believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right. Not so one could get a medal or a diploma or a slap on the back for it, but just because that was how it was supposed to be. Not many men of his kind were made anymore, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“He sits there for what must be an hour, just staring at that photo. Of all the imaginable things he most misses about her, the thing he really wishes he could do again is hold her hand in his. She had a way of folding her index finger into his palm, hiding it inside. And he always felt that nothing in the world was impossible when she did that. Of all the things he could miss, that's what he misses most.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“People had always said that Ove was bitter. But he wasn't bloody bitter. He just didn't go around grinning the whole time. Did that mean one had to be treated like a criminal? Ove hardly thought so. Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“It’s not that he’s the sort of man who gives up and dies; he doesn’t want her to think that. But it’s actually wrong, all this. She married him. And now he doesn’t quite know how to carry on without the tip of her nose in the pit between his throat and his shoulder. That’s all.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove is the sort of man who checks the status of all things by giving them a good kick.” ― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove