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Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.
Elizabeth Wein -
It’s not desperation—there is something inhuman in it. That is what I find so creepy. Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing—and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.
Elizabeth Wein
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So, I have no sense of direction. In some of us it is a TRAGIC FLAW.
Elizabeth Wein -
The Rosalie really did not want to go like the clappers and performed its usual consumptive drama every time we came to an uphill slope, coughing and gasping like a dying Dickens heroine, and finally just stopped—engine still gasping a bit but the car just stopped. Simply could not move forward up the hill. Choke full out but cylinders firing pathetically as though we were trying to make the poor thing run on nothing but air.
Elizabeth Wein -
Stars poked through like holes in the cloth of the sky and shed no light on anything.
Elizabeth Wein -
Spiderwebs joined together can catch a lion.
Elizabeth Wein -
Must stop. This ink is amazing, it really doesn't smear, even when you cry on it.
Elizabeth Wein -
I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant. But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.
Elizabeth Wein
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I think as readers we put ourselves in the protagonist's place because we want to be like that person. That's why sometimes we don't like protagonists who aren't all that nice; we want to relate to the protagonist.
Elizabeth Wein -
But more often than not the missing face has been sucked into the engines of the Nazi death machine, like an unlucky lapwing hitting the propeller of a Lancaster bomber-nothing left but feathers blowing away in the aircraft's wake, as if those warm wings and beating heart had never existed.
Elizabeth Wein -
She gave a low and delighted chuckle. Her eyes were black as a moonless December night and reflected the electric lights like stars.
Elizabeth Wein -
Von Loewe really should know me well enough by now to realize that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.
Elizabeth Wein -
How can you grow to love a handful of strangers so fiercely just because you have to sleep on the same couple of wooden planks with them, when half the time you were there you wanted to strangle them, and all you ever talked about is death and imaginary strawberries?
Elizabeth Wein -
Don’t you think it makes them stronger when you give them someone to despise?
Elizabeth Wein
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Hope—you think of hope as a bright thing, a strong thing, sustaining. But it’s not. It’s the opposite. It’s simply this: lumps of stale bread stuck down your shirt. Stale gray bread eked out with ground fish bones, which you won’t eat because you’re going to give it away, and maybe you’ll get a message through to your friend.
Elizabeth Wein -
We are a sensational team.
Elizabeth Wein -
Incredible what slender threads you begin to hang your hopes on.
Elizabeth Wein -
I love the story of a thing. I love a thing for what it means a thousand times more than for what it's worth.
Elizabeth Wein -
A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.
Elizabeth Wein -
Lucky for me I didn’t know. Why lucky for her? Not lucky for the people she was protecting, but lucky for Róża. She didn’t have to choose.
Elizabeth Wein
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When you’re flying, the changing balance of lift and weight pulls you up or down. But another pair of forces pulls you forward or backward through the air: thrust and drag. Thrust is the power that pulls the kite forward—you run with it to get it up in the air. You have to have thrust to create lift. Drag is there because your kite’s surfaces push against the air and slow the kite down. Drag doesn’t pull you out of the sky; it makes you fly more slowly.
Elizabeth Wein -
Her own hair was a glory of copper fire that morning, shining like a whisky still, long and loose in gentle flames down her back.
Elizabeth Wein -
The very term "turning pages" suggests nonstop action. But I am all about character and beautiful writing. I eat that up like popcorn. Whether a book is action-packed or not, all I need are well-written prose and quirky, fabulous characters to keep me going.
Elizabeth Wein -
It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to.
Elizabeth Wein