“I wondered how he'd learned to push the words away, to drown them, to not feel them pounding against his head and his heart, begging to be spoken.”

“But she wasnt the only one who was suffering, and sometimes there is comfort in the knowledge that you dont suffer alone, sad as that is.”

“He was right that I was afraid. But I didnt think I was afraid of the truth. I was afraid of believing something that would destroy me if it turned out to be a lie.”

“There are laws. There are rules. And when you break them, there are consequences. Laws of nature and laws of life. Laws of love and laws of death.”

“My brain is already scrambled enough.Cracked, I said, not thinking.Yeah. Moses scowled.Well, its working for you. I turned and looked at my walls. Cracks and all. In fact, if your brain wasnt crack...”

“I didnt know if his art was helping. But Mosess pictures were like that, glorious and terrible. Glorious because they brought memory to life, terrible for the same reason. Time softens memories, sa...”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“There ain't no devil, only God when he's drunk.”

“Fiction described reality better than non-fiction.”

“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.”