Susan Campbell Bartoletti > Quotes

“The worst experience can bring out a person's deepest strength.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“By nature, human beings search for ways to make sense and meaning out of their lives and their world. One way that we make meaning is through the telling of our stories. Stories connect us, teach us, and warn us never to forget.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

“There are many reasons for a person to lie, but to have a reason to tell the truth, you much have a deep belief, and great courage.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“Freedom has always been dangerous.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“You cannot repay evil with evil.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“God loves us all. He does not love us more than he loves our enemies.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“In the end, I felt hope. I realized that my soul was not permanently scarred after all. I was still a human being."

—Karl Schnibbe”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

“Geist und Tat. Spirit and Action.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“This is a war against lies. If we want to win, we can't attack in straight lines.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“This I know for sure: Life is...uncertain. As a society and as individuals, we must protect healthy people from disease. We must also treat those suffering from disease in an intelligent, humane, and compassionate way. We need to be rational and keep our fears in check.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America – A YA Historical Biography of Public Health and Human Rights

“What good are kindness, self-sacrifice, energy, and a sense of responsibility if they are so jealously guarded that only one's brothers and sisters may benefit from them?"

—Melita Maschmann”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

“There are many reasons for a person to lie, but to have a reason to tell the truth, you must have deep belief. And great courage.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, The Boy Who Dared

“What I want most of all is that you live in uprightness and freedom of spirit, no matter how difficult that may be.

—Robert Scholl”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

“Encouraged by President Johnson, Southern lawmakers quickly passed laws called the Black Codes.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Everyone craves security, but gaining freedom means loosing security.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti

“May your coffin be made of the finest wood from a one-hundred-year-old tree that I’ll go plant tomorrow. —TRADITIONAL IRISH BLESSING”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–1850

“During times of crisis or uncertainty, people often resort to rumors, or stories circulated without facts to confirm the truth, to help them cope with anxieties and fears. Of all the rumors, racial and hate rumors are considered the most dangerous because they are divisive and create hostility that can lead to violence.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“After the paper rush subsided, the older boys sometimes struck deals with the younger newsies to buy their leftover papers. 'One of the big guys would say to one of the little guys, 'Hey, punk, want to buy me out tonight?' said Philip Marcus. 'An' the little guy said yes. It was his ass if he didn't.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Kids on Strike!: The True Story of Young Activists and Child Labor in 20th Century America for Children

“Speaking in eerie voices, the Klansmen claimed to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers who had died in battle and needed water.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“The strongest chains with which the body of a man can be bound are the chains of ignorance. You keep a man ignorant and you’ve got him. You don’t have to stand guard over him with a shotgun. You don’t have to lock him up at night. Just turn him aloose and he isn’t going any place.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“In April, President Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, better known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. This new law enforced the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been ratified nearly three years earlier in 1868. The Ku Klux Klan Act made it a federal offense to interfere with an individual’s right to vote, hold office, serve on a jury, or enjoy equal protection of the law.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“Someone else suggested adding the word “klan,” a word also meaning “band” or “circle,” and so they did. In this way, the name Ku Klux Klan was cobbled together, a redundant, alliterative name that meant, simply and ridiculously, “circle circle.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“What kind of man fights for something that he knows is wrong?”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti

“Most white Southerners believed that God created black people for the special purpose of working and serving white people.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“He chuckles at his own joke. "No one wants the Jews. Not even America. Americans have no right to criticize us. They rounded up their Indians, you know. Put them on reservations.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti

“Today, psychologists explain that people who join groups such as the Ku Klux Klan are insecure and feel a need to belong to something that makes them feel powerful or superior.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group – A Chilling Young Adult History from Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866

“There's a danger in writing a person's life from a historical vantage point, for hindsight can be smug.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America – A YA Historical Biography of Public Health and Human Rights

“Some of the younger boys looked forward to the chance to sell papers in a good spot, but most were simply afraid to refuse the bigger boys. "I made a deal with a guy," said Philip Marcus. "I said I'd buy him out. But when I looked at all the papers he had left, there was more than I thought I could sell. But there wasn't two ways about it. I had to buy them and I did. I started to bawl. And while I was standing there bawling, I sold all them sheets.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Kids on Strike!: The True Story of Young Activists and Child Labor in 20th Century America for Children

“How unfair it seemed that boys could dream to grow into the tallest oaks, but girls were destined to be the vine that clings to the oak.”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti

“Today the term is still used to describe journalism”
― Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America