“The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. This was nothing like the kind of quiet he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. When that happened, there were always strange, unidentifiable sounds seeping into his room from the tiny gaps where the windowpanes weren't sealed together correctly. At those moments he could always tell there was life outside, even if all that life was fast asleep. It was a silence that wasn't silence at all.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“Do you think . . . ?"
'I do sometimes, my boy,'admitted the old man. 'When I can't avoid it.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“I like 'fresh fruit flan'," said the donkey. "Three excellent words."
"I don't have one," said Noah immediately before the question could even be asked, and the donkey opened his eyes wide in suprise, and for a moment Noah wondered whether he might even consider eating him.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“These were colours he'd never ever seen before; ones he couldn't possibly begin to name. Here, to his left, was a wooden clock, and it was painted, well not exactly green, but a colour that green might like to be if it had any imagination at all. And over there, beside the wooden board game whose overriding colour was not red, but something that red might look at enviously, blushing with embarrassment at its own dull appearance. And the wooden letter sets, well, there were those who might have said that they were painted yellow and blue, but they would have said this knowing that such plain words were an outrageous insult to the colouring on the letters themselves.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“Here's a tip though', he told me, leaning over and pressing a hand into my shoulder. 'If you want to improve your time, run faster.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“It was important to look confident, he realized that very early on. After all, there was a terrible tendency among adults to look at children travelling alone as if they were planning a crime of some sort. None of them ever thought that it might just be a young chap on his way to see the world and have a great adventure. They were so small minded, grown-ups. That was one of their many problems.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
John Boyne
Born place: in Dublin, Ireland
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“You will leave her alone,” Gabriel said. “One way or another.”
“That sounds like a death threat, Walsh.”
“Then you lack imagination.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Deceptions
“You will never find the perfect person but you might be lucky enough to find someone who wants to be.”
― J.S.B. Morse, quote from Now and at the Hour of Our Death
“She knew the risk. We both did. I’m glad that she was taken first, and not left on her own. Death is kinder than life. There is no more suffering beyond the grave. We will meet again soon, I hope.”
― Jennifer Worth, quote from Shadows of the Workhouse
“Life isn't just about darkness or light, rather it's about finding light within the darkness.”
― quote from First Night of Summer
“I don't know what's happening to me," she says, blinking through a veil of tears as she looks everywhere but at me. "I don't think I can do this anymore."
My heart plummets inside my chest, my lips still hovering over hers, my hands on her waist "do what anymore?" I don't want the answer, don't want to hear what follows my question, don't want to lose her.
"Fight it." Tears are still flowing from her eyes, but I think she stop crying. She sucks and several breaths when she looks at me, her eyes are clear that I anticipated. She's scared shitless - that's clear - but it's like she stop fighting the fear, giving into it instead.
Her lips apart and I'm a stop whatever she's about to say, silence her with my lips, but I don't, forcing myself to hear, needing to know what's got all worked up.
"I think I'm in love with you," she says, her chest heaving with every ravenous breath she takes, yet her voice is astonishingly even and she manages to maintain my gaze.
My voice however is the exact opposite of even, coming out all high-pitched like I'm a thirteen year old and going through puberty all over again. "What?"
She sucks and a breath, then releases is slowly, the fear in her eyes subsiding, as if she just won it. "I think I'm in love with you..." She bites on your lips and shakes her head. "No...I don't think. I know."
I gradually process her words and the full extent of what she's saying. I think I'd honestly believed that she might never say them, that this love thing was going to be a one-way street. Hearing her say it... I don't even know how to describe it. It's like my entire life of associated the word with hatred. Every time my mother said it, it felt like she was trying to take something from me and it made me hate her and myself-Love equaled hate for me. But hearing it from Violet's lips, seeing that look in her eyes, the one I've never seen from anyone, is so different. She's not taking something for me right now, she's giving me something.
She's giving me everything.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Certainty of Violet & Luke
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