Further to this, Ove has the cat's resentful stares to contend with. Something in its eyes reminds him of the way Sonja used to look at him.

He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced.

One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how it’s happened.

The women glare at each other. Grin. You have friends when you're fifteen years old. Sometimes you get them back.

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

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.

We have to do it for my mum's sake. Because I'm hoping that the last sorry will be to her.

Sometimes it's easier to go on living, not even knowing who you are, when at least you know precisely where you are while you go on not knowing.

At a certain age almost all the questions a person asks him or herself are really just about one thing: how should you live your life?

Just because you don’t like peanut butter doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t like . . . peanuts.

It's strange how quickly the significance of of a certain smell can change, depending on what path it decides to take through the brain. It's strange how close love and fear live to each other.

Steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.

Help yourself and heaven will help you.

Education and water should be a human right.

Any room in our house at any time in the day was there to read in or to be read to.

Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet.

Of course I planned to write the Great American Novel; that lasted about a week, at which point I decided I had nothing to say that could possibly qualify. So I wrote a romance instead.

In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates, the writer functions totally in unison with society, and expresses society's feelings, beliefs, and hopes in perfect harmony.

I believe that sometimes people come into your life at exactly the right moment to give you exactly what you need at that moment.

Science is the business of generating testable hypotheses.

Education is not acquisition of burdensome information regarding objects and men. It is the awareness of the immortal spirit within,, which is the spring of joy, peace and courage.