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My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Book by Fredrik Backman · 24 quotes · Granny, Anger, Children

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My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry Quotes

“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.”

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“And in an apartment on the other side of town, everyone wakes up with a start when the hound in the first-floor flat, without any warning, starts howling. Louder and more heartrendingly than anything they have ever heard coming out of the primal depths of any animal. As if it is singing with the sorrow and yearning of an eternity of ten thousand fairy tales. It howls for hours, all through the night, until dawn. And when the morning light seeps into the hospital room, Elsa wakes up in Granny's arms. But Granny is still in Miamas.”

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“Ninge din nou şi Elsa hotărăşte că oamenii care-i plac trebuie să-i placă mai departe, chiar dacă au fost dobitoci mai demult. Că altfel se termină cam repede oamenii din jurul tău dacă-i descalifici pe veci pe toţi cei care s-au purtat ca nişte dobitoci cândva. Se gândeşte că asta trebuie să fie morala acestei poveşti de Crăciun. Că aşa sunt poveştile de Crăciun, cu morală.”

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“But in Miamas a newborn doesn't get a godparent, newborns get a Laugher instead. After the child's parents and granny and a few other people the Elsa's granny when she was telling Elsa the story, didn't seem to thnk were terribly important, The Laugher is the most important person in a child's life in miamas. And the Laugher is not chosen by the parents, because Laughers are far too important to be chosen by parents. It's the child who does the choosing. So when a child is born in Miamas, all the family's friends cdome to the cot and tell stories and pull faces and dance and sing and make jokes, and the first one to make the child laugh becomes the Laugher. The Laugher is personally responsible for making it happen as oftenand as loudly and in as many situations as possible, particularly those that cause embarrassment to the parent.”

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“When Granny was headed for some far-off place, you could only be sure of one thing: that it was a place everyone else was trying to get away from. And if anyone asked her why she was doing it, she'd answer, "I'm a doctor, for God's sake, and ever since I became one I've not allowed myself the luxury of choosing whose life I should be saving.”

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“They hate people and their stories; they have hated for so long and with such intensity that in the end the darkness enveloped their whole bodies until their shapes were no longer discernible. That is also why they are so difficult to defeat, because they can disappear into walls or into the ground or float up. They're ferocious and bloodthirsty, and if you're bitten by one you don't just die; a far more serious and terrible fate lies in store: you lose your imagination. (talking about shadows)”

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