Elizabeth Wein Quotes
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I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.
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I am like a ruined piece of parchment scrawled over and over again with your name, so many times it has become illegible.
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Incredible what slender threads you begin to hang your hopes on.
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It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.
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Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.
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A poet and a doctor. Maybe I could. This the first thought I have of it. Maybe I could.
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Doing the thing you are scared of is much harder than not being afraid of anything. It is easy to be brave. It is not so easy to be scared and do a brave thing anyway.
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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.
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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.
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Everything I know about passive resistance I learned from Micheline. She always appeared to be doing exactly as she was told, but everything she did took twice as long as it should have.
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It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to.
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Truth is the daughter of time, not authority.
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Ellen looked around the room with an odd expression, for the first few seconds not taking in the collection spread across the tables, but just taking in the library: the smell of ink and foxy paper and old wood, the green view of the river beyond the leaded casement window propped open just an inch. As if she loved it, but was a little scared to be there.
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...unless you were doing them a favor by killing them. Then, you'd let them down if you didn't, if you couldn't make yourself.
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It was a nightmare I could never really define, to have so many people packed around me and not be able to communicate with any of them unless they felt like it.
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She gave a low and delighted chuckle. Her eyes were black as a moonless December night and reflected the electric lights like stars.
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I felt like one who wants to trap and cage a little bird, and after years of waiting and luring and baiting finds that she must do no more than hold out her hand, and the finch lands on her finger and does not fly. You scarcely dare to move. It rests on your hand whole and free, foolishly trusting and infinitely courageous. It will never be more beautiful.
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And I envied her that she had chosen her work herself and was doing what she wanted to do. I don't suppose I had any idea what I 'wanted' and so I was chosen, not choosing. There's glory and honor in being chosen. But not much room for free will.
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A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.
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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.
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But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.
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I seem to be good at asking for trouble.
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She whispered, 'C'etait la Verite?' Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? 'Yes,' I whispered back. 'Oui. C'etait la verite.
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If I am very lucky - I mean if I am clever about it - I will get myself shot. Here, soon.