Carol Matas > Quotes

“We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.”
― Carol Matas, Daniel's Story

“I want someone to pinch me so I can feel something, anything. I'm sick of this numbness, of feeling so alone and outside of everything, but I know it's too dangerous to wake up."

—Ruth Mendenberg”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“As for sex. Well, of course I could’ve had sex. Guys will have sex with a watermelon if they’re desperate enough. Lots of girls try to prove their love by having sex. It only proves they’re having sex.”
― Carol Matas, The Freak

“(B)ut who can start over when memories never leave you?

—Ruth Mendenberg”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“Deep inside me something says don't feel anything, go back to sleep, when you feel, it hurts. When you love, people die."

—Ruth Mendenberg”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“I am wandering inside, wandering through my past, trying to see if there is a place there strong enough to hold me.

—Ruth Mendenberg”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“Haven't we all been hurt? Don't you think it takes courage to be happy, to feel, to love? Don't you think it costs us all?

—Rivka”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“I go in alone, for there is no one for me, but I don't care, I tell myself; I'd expected no one.


—Ruth”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“Will you be all right?" she asked

How could I be?

Would you be all right, I felt like screaming, if you'd just watched your family taken away, watched your entire town taken away, to be murdered. I'll never be alright.”
― Carol Matas, Greater Than Angels

“(S)omehow I've survived again. I don't know how to stop.

—Ruth”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“You know that quilt you are making at school? Each child makes a square, correct?"
"Yes," I said.
"And none of you knows what the other squares will look like. Perhaps that is the way God works. We are each like one of the squares. We choose how our own square will look, we choose the colour, the design, all of that. But when we are put in with the other squares we might be in the middle, at the edge, make the whole look one way or another. ... And it's when we interact with all the other squares that the unexpected can happen. And it can change the way our square is viewed. ... It's a mixture of our choices and God's choices. And it all makes a pattern, but only God can see the big pattern.”
― Carol Matas, Turned Away: The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein

“Ruth. If I die tomorrow, I'll be dead. But while I'm here, I want to be alive. One or the other. Not the state your'e in.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“We only have now. nobody really has more than that. The difference is, we know it.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“You've lived through all this, Ruth. Do you know how strong that makes you? Ruth, it takes more work to be afraid than to ride the fear, to live with the fear, to accept it.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“That's what I believe, God exists. God is there. But God doesn't decide what happens here on earth; we do. God gave us free will and we have to use it."

~Zvi”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“What does the world look like? It depends on who's looking. And the wonderful thing is, it takes more than one set of eyes to get a full picture.”
― Carol Matas, Who's Looking?: How Animals See the World

“Ruth. If I die tomorrow, I'll be dead. But while I'm here, I want to be alive. One or the other. Not the state you're in.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“You're a coward," she says, "afraid to feel anything in case you get hurt. Well, look around. Haven't we all been hurt? Don't you think it takes courage to be happy, to feel, to love? Don't you think it costs us all?
I stare at her. "Fine, I'm a coward. I'd rather be a coward than have to feel anything ever again.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“I agree that we can't be weak. We can fight when attacked, of course, but should we become the attackers?”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“If I forget the bad, I have to forget the good, too. The memories are all I have now of my family. And I don't want to lose them.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“You don't think we can love each other?" She challenges me.
"Sure, of course you can. But he could be dead tomorrow," I warn. "Or you could."
"And is that a reason not to love someone?" She asks
"Yes." I reply "Yes, it is.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“I am wandering inside, wandering through my past, trying to see if there is a place there strong enough to hold me.”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“I know one thing -- I don't understand it. Will Adam's survival, or Morris's, depend on something little like that? Like a toss of a coin? It makes me feel like everything must be terribly important, even the toss of a coin, or nothing is important, and we may as well not care about anything.”
― Carol Matas, Turned Away: The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein

“We are alive, but what is left of us?”
― Carol Matas, After the War

“And then, right in front of Lufa, they kissed again.”
― Carol Matas, Of Two Minds