Hélène Berr > Quotes

“Each of us in our own small sphere can do something. And we can, we must.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“There is beauty in the midst of tragedy. As if beauty were condensing in the heart of ugliness. It's very strange.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“This book made me feel strangely awkward, because I'm afraid of finding my own story in it. I take books too seriously.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“It's a wonderful, inspiring feeling to have real friends who love and understand you. I have never had that feeling before.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“I really don't know what's happened to me, but I have changed from top to toe. I am living in a strange mixture of memories of yesterday and today.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“What will become of me? I do not know where am I going or what tomorrow will bring.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“They brought me tea and toast; the tea was undrinkable, but the kindness was touching.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“Being free to suffer alone is itself a consolation.”
― Hélène Berr

“What people need in order to write is an observant spirit and a broad mind.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“The looming storm broke in the end. And it is the storm I will remember, the sound of the downpour splattering over the steps of the Tuileries, the dark sky and the pink lightning. I could have stayed like that for centuries.”
― Hélène Berr

“The impression that what is extraordinary is real, and that the real is the extraordinary.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“Now that everybody thinks he looks a little Slavic, it annoys me. I don't want that to be the reason I find him charming. I found him charming for no reason, because he is who he is.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“There can be no deeper despair, no pain less easy to assuage, than losing a husband when you are young.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“The most beautiful things that happen are those I don't foresee.”
― Hélène Berr

“I have a duty to write because other people must know. Every hour of every day there is another painful realization that other folk do not know, do not even imagine, the suffering of other men, the evil that some of them inflict. And I am still trying to make the painful effort to tell the story. Because it is a duty, it is maybe the only one I can fulfill.”
― Hélène Berr

“It seemed to me that I was suddenly in the presence of incosolable, unavoidable, and immense pain.

The thought of that death hunted me and turned everything else into nothing.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“Après le goûter, sur les marches du perron, nous avons eu une grande conversation. Je me suis laissée aller, sans même craindre que ce fût mal. Avec lui, tout est normal et facile. Et je ne suis ni embrouillée, ni divisée. Je suis enchantée. Il y a quelque chose d'enchanté dans ma vie actuellement. J'en suis reconnaissante de tout mon cœur.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“... I played a game, looking at dewdrops on blades of grass — by tilting my head I could make their color change from diamantine to emerald to vermilion.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“...For I do now know that it is cowardly. We do not have the right to think only of poetry on this earth. It is magical, but utterly selfish.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“And then there is pride. I do not want any part of it. The idea that you can write for other people, so as to be praised by them, horrifies me. Maybe there is also the feeling that "other people" won't understand you completely, that they make you dirty and mutilate you, and that you let yourself be cheapened like mere merchandise.”
― Hélène Berr, The Journal of Hélène Berr

“Nobody ever resisted change more than I did. It went so far as to make me fear enjoyment and new experiences, however enticing they were (such as a trip away or an unexpected event), because of the disorder they would cause in my existence, and also because they intimated me.”
― Hélène Berr

“There is unity against evil, and communion in suffering.”
― Hélène Berr