Gemma Liviero > Quotes

“Love is more than just a word. It is something you grow into with time.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“As long as there is a sun and a moon, there is another day to love and fight.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“Each time my mother sank to the bottom of cold despair, she would always find a break in the ice above, to breathe new air, to find new purpose. She never indulged in self-pity, nor did she point the finger of blame for her misfortunes. Her heart was clear of bitterness. I believe that if a person’s strength of character is measured at the end of his or her life, it is by these qualities—qualities that allow a life to be lived, free of those restraints we place upon ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we should forget.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“I did hate once, but hate now lives in the past. And I prefer to remember the past, not live in it.”
― Gemma Liviero, The Road Beyond Ruin

“I suddenly realized how very human we all were, how in many ways, despite class, we were much the same deep down. All just yearning to be known and at the very least remembered”
― Gemma Liviero, In a Field of Blue

“She never indulged in self-pity, nor did she point the finger of blame for her misfortunes. Her heart was clear of bitterness. I believe that if a person’s strength of character is measured at the end of his or her life, it is by these qualities—qualities that allow a life to be lived, free of those restraints we place upon ourselves.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“There is no shame to not love your own flesh and blood. As I have discovered, the people I value most in the world do not share mine.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“Because they are ignorant and their parents are ignorant. Because they don’t know any better.” Pastel Orphans”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“I think that this place can strip a person of human traits. It can make one desire nothing and hope for even less.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“We will never go back there. We will never again be friends,’ he said to Mama, Leah, and me. And I understood. You cannot go back once you learn the truth about people’s feelings.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“After what we have seen, we can never again be who we were.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“Late afternoon, a package arrives addressed to me. Inside is a picture book and the title is Hansel and Gretel. It is the most beautiful book. It has a golden spine and the pictures are shining with color.
I read the whole book over and over again and then I read it to Greta, who clings to me afterwards.
“It is all right,” I say to her. “It is just a story. Things like that don’t really happen.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“You are the only person with the power to control your thoughts and attitudes. No one can touch you in here,” I say, pointing to my head. “You don’t have to change who you are because of what has happened to you.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“Dwell, if you have to dwell on something, on the good things not the bad.”
― Gemma Liviero, Half in Shadow

“They can’t get away with this for much longer. Social injustice is not acceptable in the Western world.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“But truth is not always what the people want.”
― Gemma Liviero, An Age of Winters

“Children are simply incomplete adults, he would say. It is important to help complete them, not treat them like imbeciles.”
― Gemma Liviero, The Road Beyond Ruin

“She is human like the rest of us. She believes in fairness. What is happening to them is not fair.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“War limits choices.”
― Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans

“She believes that everyone we meet influences us, that we need to hear their stories to learn more about ourselves.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“Love is more than just a word. It is something we grow into with time.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“color gray:”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“I don’t want to go home,” whispers Michal, and his eyes begin to water. And Stefano is wondering about the dark places that the boy has called home.”
― Gemma Liviero, The Road Beyond Ruin

“I know that to know love, you have to feel pain first. That is when you can truly understand what it is and how to appreciate it. I have felt pain and I know love, yet the people I should have loved more are all gone. Before”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“You have to understand that there were times when the urgency of the situation did not allow for the orderly rules found in a place free from war.”
― Gemma Liviero, In a Field of Blue

“But it be the other hand I was unsure of. The hand that usually holds the secrets that people don’t show about themselves.”
― Gemma Liviero, An Age of Winters

“Erich says nothing. His feelings toward his former führer are mixed. One cannot suddenly dismiss a loyalty that has been bred, then fed and nurtured until it has become part of one’s blood.”
― Gemma Liviero, The Road Beyond Ruin

“That someone could rescue me from death and ask for nothing in return is a concept I struggle to accept. I am used to begging for more and receiving even less. I nearly gave my heart to Simon, but I do not believe that he loved me, not in the way I was hoping. I believed in his cause, but I have to admit that he felt no love for me. In Simon’s life there was no room.”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“It was a sunny day, I was carrying a child in a long white dress to be christened. The path to the church led up a steep slope, but I held the child in my arms firmly and without faltering. Then suddenly my footing gave way . . . I had enough time to put the child down before plunging into the abyss. The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles it will prevail. —Sophie Scholl (1921–1943), German student executed for her involvement in the nonviolent anti-Nazi resistance group the White Rose”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels

“What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. —Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)”
― Gemma Liviero, Broken Angels