Paula > Paula's Quotes

“I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that’s where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn’t be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better. What good were the words?”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life.
"Don't punish yourself," she heard her say again, but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right. - Liesel Meminger”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The thing about the Nazis," Ruud said, "is that they're paranoid, but they never see what's right under their noses. If they did, Hitler wouldn't wear that bloody silly little moustache.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“In London, I was unique. But down here, where I was a bungalow one minute and a funeral parlour the next, I felt as thought I was dissolving. I mean, if you're everywhere, you're nowhere. If you're everything, you're nothing.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“What I'm trying to explain to my sulky little cousin is that we are doing things backwards. We are going from the end of the river to the start of the river. And endings are always sad. We are doing the sad bit first, which is wrong. Strange.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“He didn't respond for several seconds. Then he said, "You see things... sometimes you see things that make you think the rest of your life is impossible. Just seeing them damages you so much, you think, I cannot go on being human."
Marijke wrapped her fingers over his clenched fist. He didn't look at her.
"I keep thinking about the Germans in the firing squad. Killing and then killing again and again, looking at the faces... How? How did they do that? I can't... I can't even imagine. But, the thing is, if you took one of those men and stripped away the uniform, and sat him next to me, how different would we be? Would you be able to see murder on his skin? Smell murder on his breath? And not on mine?”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“I felt suddenly let down. Not depressed, exactly. I can only describe it as that feeling you get when you have to go back to school after a perfect holiday. Reality tugging at you, like a friend you don't really like.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“So? You think people stop talking to you when they are dead?”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“But when I stood there and saw that the end of the journey was as vague and unreachable as the beginning had been, I realized I didn't care. No, more than that: I was relieved. I didn't want an ending, didn't want to get to the full stop of our story.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“The past is a dark house, and we have only torches with dying batteries. It's probably best not to spend too much time in there in case the rotten floor gives way beneath our feet.”
― Mal Peet, Tamar

“More and more he'd begun to recognize the position of importance his students were unconsciously forcing upon him - the ultimate leader of The Wave.”
― Todd Strasser, The Wave

“Was it a weakness of man that made him want to ignore the darker side of his fellow human beings?”
― Todd Strasser, The Wave

“Was it really true that the natural inclination of people was to look for a leader? Someone to make decisions for them? Indeed, the faces looking up at him said it was. That was the awesome responsibility any leader had, knowing that a group like this would follow. Ben began to realize how much more serious this 'little experiment' was than he'd ever imagined. It was frightening how easily they would put their faith in your hands, how easily they would let you decide for them. If people were destined to be led, Ben thought, this was something he must make sure they learned: to question thoroughly, never to put your faith in anyone's hands blindly.”
― Todd Strasser, The Wave

“A life was a symphony, with different movements and complicated musical forms. A song was something shorter. A smaller piece of a life.”
― Alan Gratz

“They only see us when we do something they don't want us to do, Mahmoud realized. The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. When they stayed where they were supposed to be - in the ruins of Aleppo or behind the fences of a refugee camp - people could forget about them. But when refugees did something they didn't want them to do - when they tried to cross the border into their country, or slept on the front stoops of their shops, or jumped in front of their cars, or prayed on the decks of their ferries - that's when people couldn't ignore them any longer.
Mahmoud's first instinct was to disappear below decks. To be invisible. Being invisible in Syria had kept him alive. But now Mahmoud began to wonder if being invisible in Europe might be the death of him and his family. If no one saw them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really happening here.”
― Alan Gratz, Refugee

“But as she watched Lito and Papi lift up Ivan's body, the empty place inside got bigger and bigger, until she was more empty than full.”
― Alan Gratz, Refugee

“Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Be unimportant. Blend in.
Disappear.
That was how you avoided the bullies.”
― Alan Gratz, Refugee

“A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain. Louie thought: Let go.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“Life was cheap in war.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain. Without dignity, identity is erased. In its absence, men are defined not by themselves, but by their captors and the circumstances in which they are forced to live. One American airman, shot down and relentlessly debased by his Japanese captors, described the state of mind that his captivity created: "I was literally becoming a lesser human being.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“What God asks of men, said [Billy] Graham, is faith. His invisibility is the truest test of that faith. To know who sees him, God makes himself unseen.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“His conviction that everything happened for a reason, and would come to good, gave him laughing equanimity even in hard times.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“Nothing is invented, for it’s written in nature first. Originality consists of returning to the origin. —ANTONI GAUDÍ”
― Dan Brown, Origin

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche