Things My Son Needs to Know About the World Quotes

“I want you to always remember that you can become whatever you want to become, but that’s nowhere near as important as knowing that you can be exactly who you are.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“Never go to a game of anything and shout, “You’re playing like a woman!” at an athlete, as though that word were the definition of weakness. One day, you’ll be holding a woman’s hand as she gives birth and then that’ll make you feel more ashamed than you’ve ever felt about anything. Words matter. Be better.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“I hope you'll know more than I did. That you'll never fear justice. Never misinterpret the fight for equality as a war between the sexes. That you'll never believe that a woman doesn't deserve the same rights or freedoms or chances that you do. I hope you'll know that, above all, most people are not looking for special treatment, most people don't want everything to be the same for everyone, most people just want things to be FAIR for everyone. I hope you'll get that, way faster than I did. And I hope that you'll never get it into your head that just because a woman deserves every opportunity you do, you have to stop holding the door open for her when you can. That you'll never think it's impossible to be equals and behave like a gentleman at the same time. Because, as your grandmothers will teach you, that's rubbish.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“Regardless of how many shortcomings the person you fall in love with might have, I can guarantee that you still come out on top of that bargain. So find someone who doesn't love you for the person you are, but despite the person you are.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“I've done what I can to teach you to never feel threatened by strong women. I married the strongest one I've ever met.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“So, we need to give her this, you and I. For all the things she does for us every day, we need to give her this. We need to let her sleep at night so she can be all our Sunday mornings when she wakes up.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“So, son, let me explain to you that all this that you see around you right now is called 'life.' It's going to be complicated at times and it's going to demand certain things of you. You'll need to be honest and brave and just. Love and be loved. Fail. Embarrass yourself. Triumph. Fall from something. Fall for someone.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“Words matter. Be better.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“The majority of things in life are about picking your battles. You'll learn that too. And that will never be clearer than when you're at IKEA. You'd have to visit a Danish vacation village after two weeks of pouring rain and no beer to come across as many couples arguing as you'll hear in the IKEA section for changeable sofa covers on any given Tuesday. People take this whole interior design thing really seriously these days. It's become a national pastime to over interpret the symbolism of the fact that "he wants frosted glass, that just proves he never listens to my FEELINGS." "Ahhhhh! She wants beech veneer. Do you hear me? Beech veneer! Sometimes, it feels like I've woken up next to a stranger!" That's how it is, every single time you go there. And I'm not going to lecture you, but if there's just one thing I can get across then let it be this: no one has ever, in the history of the world, had an argument in IKEA that really is about IKEA. People can say whatever they life, but when a couple who has been married for ten years walks around the bookshelves section calling one another words normally only used by alcoholic crime fiction detectives, they might be arguing about a number of things, but trust me: cupboard doors is not one of them. Believe me. You're a Backman. Regardless of how many shortcomings the person you fall in love with might have, I can guarantee that you still come out on top of that bargain. So find someone who doesn't love you for the person you are, but despite the person you are. And when you're standing there, in the storage section at IKEA, don't focus too much on the furniture. Focus on the fact that you've actually found someone who can see themselves storing their crap in the same place as your crap. Because, hand on heart: you have a lot of crap.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“People used to shout, "stand up like a real man," in every possible context when I was a teenager. It took me a good few years into my twenties to realize that real men can also stay seated, shut up, and listen. And admit when they're wrong.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World

“The realization that you will, from that moment on, draw all your breaths through someone else’s lungs hits you harder when you aren’t prepared.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“But here: I just want you to know that I'm not going to try to trick you into thinking there's no evil in the world. Because there is. This world sometimes seems like it's full of incomprehensible, unintelligible, unembraceable, inexorable evil. Violence and injustice and greed and blind rage.

But it's also full of all that other stuff. The small things. Kindness between strangers. Love at first sight. Loyalty and friendship. Someone's hand in yours on a Sunday afternoon. Two brothers reconciled. Heroes who stand up when no one else dares. A fiftysomething man in a Saab who slows down when he sees your turn signal and lets you into his lane during rush hour. Summer nights. Children's laughter. Cheesecake.

And all you can do is decide which side you want to be on. Which pile you want to contribute to.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World

“And when you’re standing there, in the storage section at IKEA, don’t focus too much on the furniture. Focus on the fact that you’ve actually found someone who can see themselves storing their crap in the same place as your crap. Because, hand on heart: you have a lot of crap.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“We want you to be better than us. Because if our kids don’t grow up to be better than us, then what’s the point of all this? We want you to be kinder, smarter, more humble, more generous, and more selfless than we are. We want to give you the very best circumstances we can possibly provide. So we follow sleeping methods and go to seminars and buy ergonomic bathtubs and push car-seat salesmen up against the wall and shout, ‘The safest! I want THE SAFEST, doyouhearme?!’ (Not that I’ve ever done that, of course; you shouldn’t pay so much attention to what your mother says.)”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“This parenthood thing didn’t come with instructions, that’s all I’m saying.
You spit on the napkin.
Then you wipe the child’s face with the napkin. You don’t spit straight onto the child.
My bad.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“Never let the terms of masculinity be dictated by someone who thinks it's bound up with sexuality. If you really want to know something about what it means to be a man, just ask Gareth Thomas, who stood up in a locker room and told his teammates on the Welsh national rugby team that he was gay. I might not know much about much in this world, but I know for damn sure that no one in that locker room was more of a man at that moment than he was.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“I just want you to know that I love you. Once you’re older, you’ll realize that I made an endless line of mistakes during your childhood. I know that. I’ve resigned myself to it. But I just want you to know that I did my very, very best. I left it all on the field. I gave this every ounce of everything I had. I”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“sometimes the strongest person isn’t the one who hits. It’s the one who doesn’t hit back.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“For a society that constantly claims we shouldn't make any distinctions between men and women, we sure spend an awful lot of time defining exactly what those differences are...I know I'm still learning about what the word 'inequality' really means. Every day. I have to. I'm a white, heterosexual, Western European man with an education and a job. There's not a single organism in the entire universe who knows less about inequality than me. But I'm trying to learn.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“So it’s without superpowers that you come home from the hospital with your newborn child and feel utterly abandoned and terrified. You look at the hospital staff as they discharge you from the maternity ward like they’re leaving you to die in the desert.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“There is plenty that can be said about your grandfathers' generation of men, but they wouldn't have had time to learn about everything in the world if the women of their generation hadn't taken care of everything else while they did.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“Remember, a good friend helps you move, but a great friend helps you move a dead body.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“having kids is in many ways like trying to drive a bulldozer through a china shop. With broken legs. Wearing a back-to-front ski mask. While drunk.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“So play. Learn. Grow up. Follow your passions. Find someone to love. Do your best. Be kind when you can, tough when you need to be. Hold on to your friends. Don’t go against the direction of the painted arrows in the floor. You’ll be just fine.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“And I hope that you’ll never get it into your head that just because a woman deserves every opportunity you do, you have to stop holding the door open for her when you can. That you'll never think it's impossible to be equals and behave like a gentleman at the same time.”
― Fredrik Backman, Saker min son behöver veta om världen

“They’ve said and written grand, wonderful things. I hope you get to read and hear all of them, because there’s something so special in that experience, in falling in love with words. Feeling them like fluttering butterflies beneath your skin. Like whirlwinds in your head. Like a punch to the gut.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“But my generation knows, OKAY? We know EVERYTHING! So if anything goes sideways with your childhood, I’ll be held responsible. It will never be legally sustainable that I acted “in good faith.” I could have googled it. I should have googled it. My God, why didn’t I google it? Damn it.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

“I’m blunt and sharp and full of black and white. She’s all my colour.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World

“Because people like stuff. New stuff, even newer stuff. Stuff to replace old stuff with and old stuff that is so old it becomes retro stuff and starts being used instead of new stuff. Let me tell you, it's fun stuff. Sometimes we have to get rid of stuff to make room for new stuff. And then we start to miss the old stuff so much that we have to build new stuff that pretends to be the old stuff. Like when we put TV screens on the treadmills at the gym and then play videos of trees on them so that we feel like we're running through the forest. Yes, I know what you're thinking. Why don't you just go running into the forest to begin with? and it's completely ok to wonder that. You don't know any better. But you see, we had to cut down the trees in the forest in order to build a highway so we could drive our cars to the gym. And yes, I can already see what you're thinking: Why did you have to cut down the trees? But hey, what did you want us to do? They were standing in the middle of the highway. It's complicated stuff to explain.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World

“If everyone wasn’t going in the same direction inside IKEA, there would be chaos, do you understand that? Civilization as we know it would collapse into a furious Judgement Day inferno of shadows and fire.”
― Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About The World