“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 talki...”

“A time like that comes for every man, when he choses what sort of man he wants to be. And if you don't know the story, you don't know the man.”

“Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound.”

“One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don't turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are.”

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good an...”