Jessica

“I haven't left my post!" she wanted to shout. "We're here." She needed to convince them that the ALP must remain open. "Libraries are lungs," she scrawled, her pen barely able to keep with her ideas. "Books the fresh air breathed in to keep the heart beating, to keep the brain imagining, to keep home alive. Subscribers depend on us for news, for community. Soldiers need books, need to know their friends at the library care. Our work is too important to stop now."

...."We are giving the students what they need, the public, the books they want, and the soldiers, what we can. It is after all, something, to continue to hold on, to hope for a wider contribution to humanity.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“His pulse hammers. Somewhere on board his brother's heart beats, too. Please, God. The hearth that heat inside his own before they'd even drawn breath. This friend he'd shared a lifetime with. Only a wall of war-thick steel and military protection between them.”
― Amanda Dykes, Whose Waves These Are

“You work for 30, 40 years. 40 freaking years getting in the car, driving through traffic, dealing with BS, driving home, and taking the kids to buy sneakers?”

I realized April had come over. How long she had been listening, I didn't know.

“ And you don't want all that?”, She asked me.

“Maybe . Someday,” I said. “I don't even know if I'll go to college, but my mom's looking at an MBA for me, and I go along, mostly. Why? Because I care about business? No, because everyone's on me about my future. Got to get the good grades so you can get a good college so you can get a good business school so you can get on with some big firmware you Shuffle papers and tap on the keyboard That's it, man, that's your life so you get old and wonder what the hell you did with your life. That's not life. Not for a man, anyway.”

April cocked an eyebrow. “The way you described it, it doesn't sound like life for anyone. That won't be my life. You leave it all the good stuff: friends and family. Kids. The things you love to do."

I waved my hand, dismissing it all. “There used to be an adventure. You know? Going west in a wagon train, or going to war, or exploring some place no human being had ever been before. Now what do we have? Look at Sven. Look at that guy. He's my age, look at his life. Then look at mine or Jalil’s or your’s.”

April barked out a laugh. “He can barely talk because someone rammed a sword through his mouth. “

I nodded. “You know the difference between him and me? We're both about 16. But he's a man. I'm a boy.”

April made a face, angry, dismissive, frustrated. “What is it with you guys? Is it the testosterone? You know, David, it's the dawn of the 21st century and you live in the richest, most powerful Nation on Earth where there's almost no one starving and no one's slave and no one invading to murder and pillage and rape. And finally, finally after thousands of years of men slaughtering men, women, and children over nonsense, we have a few places on Earth where there's a little piece, a little decency a few places where most people get to be born and live their lives without total horror being rained down on them, and your reaction is, ‘this has to stop!”
― K.A. Applegate

“But if the "ordinary people" do nothing then who is going to step forward and take a stand against the Nazis? Not the politicians in Vichy who are puppets of the new regime; and not the French army whose battalions lie rotting in shallow graves along the Eastern Front. We are all that is left, Claire. Ordinary people like you and me.”
― Fiona Valpy, The Dressmaker's Gift