Britt-Marie Was Here

Metadata

• Author: [[Fredrik Backman]]
• Full Title: Britt-Marie Was Here
• Category: #books

Notes

The balcony boxes may look as if they only contain soil, but underneath there are flowers waiting for spring. The winter requires whoever is doing the watering to have a bit of faith, in order to believe that what looks empty has every potential. Britt-Marie no longer knows whether she has faith or just hope. Maybe neither. (Location 605)

It’s difficult to know when love blooms; suddenly one day you wake up and it’s in full flower. It works the same way when it wilts – one day it is just too late. Love has a great deal in common with balcony plants in that way. (Location 650)

A moment later the front door slams and the house drowns in the silence that follows. (Location 1433)

‘Because sometimes love isn’t enough.’ (Location 1651)

Then he tries to embrace her again, laughs when she squirms, and runs off. (Location 1723)

He is twenty years old at most but, judging by the suffocating grip of his presence in the darkness, you might describe him as a ‘spirit of violence’. Britt-Marie wonders whether in a crossword this might be rendered as ‘God of aggression’. Vertical, fifteen letters. People have time to think of all sorts of things while they face up to what they imagine is their imminent violent death, and this happens to be the first thing that comes to Britt-Marie’s mind. (Location 1790)

Sven smooths the back of his hand over his eyebrows. (Location 2168)

Sven’s gaze loses itself in some place where the headlights end and darkness begins. (Location 2174)

She slept the unreflective sleep of a child, and she woke up in great spirits. (Location 2331)

No one like memories of good time when times are bad, (Location 2355)

A year turned into several years, and several years turned into all the years. One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how it’s happened. (Location 2777)

Britt-Marie chops her bandaged hand through the air in what could probably have qualified as a new form of martial arts and abruptly silences him. (Location 3158)

Britt-Marie is not sure exactly at what point the sun broke through the eternal grey haze of the January sky, but it seems to be looking ahead into the new season. (Location 3467)