Erin Litteken > Quotes

“Execution by Hunger.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Life is a series of choices, each one pushing you towards the next. Maybe if I’d chosen differently in the very beginning, things would have been better.” “Or maybe they would have been worse,” Cassie said.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“You are my calm in this storm.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Life is a series of choices, each one pushing you towards the next.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“he was doing the very thing the state officials hoped to prevent—uniting them.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“This is not about getting us to produce more food,” he said, as the impossibility of survival suddenly became so painfully clear to both of them. “They want us all dead.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Looking to the future doesn’t mean you have to forget the past.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Her past clutched in her hands and her future laid out in front of her, painted against each other in stark relief, but how could she bridge this divide? Life had set her down a path she’d never imagined traveling, and now she was stuck with one foot in each world—the before and after.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“arrested Ukrainian leaders, teachers, and priests. Polish veterans of WW1 were given prime land in Volhynia in a colonial attempt to strengthen the Polish grip there. In return, Ukrainian nationalists assassinated Polish leaders and attacked Polish landowners. Poland then opened what is now recognized as a concentration camp, Bereza Kartuska, where Ukrainian nationalists were imprisoned without trial and tortured and abused. In 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany started World War II by invading Poland and dividing the country between them. In the east, the Soviets occupied Volhynia until 1941, when Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and attacked the Soviet Union. Under German occupation, Volhynia became a part of the newly formed Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Both regimes devastated Ukraine and Poland, destroying villages and cities and arresting, deporting and murdering millions. During this upheaval, the historic tensions between the Poles and Ukrainians erupted in a series of violent clashes and brutal massacres of innocent civilians. Whole villages were decimated and the sheer brutality of these deaths—often executed with farm implements—contrasted directly with generations”
― Erin Litteken, The Lost Daughters of Ukraine

“Looking to the future doesn’t mean you have to forget the past. You can have both, Cassie, and be all the richer for it.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“How did I not know about this?”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“She wasn’t sure what she believed anymore, but if someone had the chance to escape this hell, dead or alive, she certainly didn’t want to invite them back.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Looking to the future doesn’t mean you have to forget the past. You can have both.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Their lips met and Katya tasted the salty tears of their shared losses, and something more. Something promising. Feelings she’d thought long dead unfurled in her cold heart like a flower opening its petals to the sun on the first day of spring. Whispers of the possibilities of a new life, a new love, filled her soul, and the sudden yearning for him made her dizzy.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Just make it through today, and hope tomorrow will be better.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“What do you think being a mother is? It’s a constant battle. It’s endless fear. It’s continuous worry. And it’s always work! But it’s worth it, Katya; I swear to you, it’s worth it.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Life is a series of choices, each one pushing you towards the next. Maybe if I’d chosen differently in the very beginning, things would have been better.” “Or maybe they would have been worse,” Cassie said. Bobby shrugged one bony shoulder. “Maybe. But what’s done is done, and I can’t change it now. I can only say this: I made a mistake in thinking I could bury it all. Looking to the future doesn’t mean you have to forget the past. You can have both, Cassie, and be all the richer for it.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“Things will get worse before they get better, but you are strong. Just make it through today and hope that tomorrow will be better.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

“That’s what being a mother was—ripping out a piece of your heart and giving it to your child.”
― Erin Litteken, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv