Quotes from Summer of My German Soldier

“Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces—spaces you know can't ever be filled.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“It seems to me that a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you're in pain?”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“A person's got to think, otherwise that person's no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he'd know he was making a thousand children laugh.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“Keep in mind that life produces no maestros, only students of varying shades of ineptitude.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“I wondered if a blessing is still a blessing if it lasts for only a little while.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“Fun, like champagne bubbles, can't completely fill you up.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“I believe that love is better than hate. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“The ways of the Lord are filled with wonder and mystery.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“When people's emotions are involved they don't want to listen.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“Folks keep forgetting that wishing don't make nothing so, but prayer sometimes do.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down. If I had to, I'd measure my progress in inches. One more inch I've swum—one less inch to swim. Once you know the secret, then nobody's river can bring you down.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“Sometimes when a person be thinking about one thing it don't mean they is mad about another thing.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“One thing you can say about him is that he's appreciative. He's just happy having someone to sit with.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“But you, Pearl, never liked anything once it was yours.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“My father chose acquiescence and life rather than resistance and death. Not a very admirable choice, but a very human one.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

“My deception was believed because it was built on a foundation of truth … Hitler's first layer is an undeniable truth, such as: The German workers are poor. The second layer is divided equally between flattery and truth: The German worker deserves to be prosperous. The third layer is fabrication: The Jews and the Communists and Jews have stolen what is rightfully yours.”
― Bette Greene, quote from Summer of My German Soldier

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“I don’t have royal blood,” I told her, “but we two could have been twins. It was as if we swam in the same fluids in our mother ’s womb, so that some of my maleness became hers and some of her femaleness mine. That made us strange in the eyes of the world, which does not care for in-between beings. We have both taken blows because of it. She was protean, as am I. She was fierce and affectionate and smart and unpredictable. That is why I loved her . . . that is why!”
― Anita Amirrezvani, quote from Equal of the Sun

“If you don’t want people walking in your house and putting their feet on your coffee table, then keep your feet where they belong.”
― quote from Why Your Flight Attendant Hates You

“To my lovely starling,
Maybe there are magical words that will make you understand, but if so, I do not know them. Words are your domain. I've always been better with pictures.
I fear you think I am a monster. It's true I've disrupted many graves. The way I see it, the dead are dead. If, after their death, we can learn things from the about the human form - things that will increase the sum of human knowledge and the possibilities of art - what harm is that? After death, new life, new beauty. How can that be wrong? My friends and I have made use of some of the bodies as models. some we sell to surgeons who study them with the hopes of learning something about the frail mechanisms of the human body.
I don't know exactly what Dottor de Gradi does in his workshop on the Rialto, and I was as surprised as you were to stumble on it. He couldn't - he wouldn't tell me if your friend's body ended up there. But he did assure me all of his work is focused solely on extending human life.
I won't lie. I did it for the money as well. Don Loredan is holding a private exhibition in his palazzo tomorrow. The entry fee was quite steep but two of my paintings were accepted. This could be the beginning for me. I could find my own patrons. I could be more than just a peasant. Tommaso's assistant.
So yes; a little for money. But mostly I did for the art.
I don't expect these words to change how you feel. I simply want you not to see me as a monster. I don't want to be a monster. Not anymore. Not after meeting you. I know that we disrupted you dear friend's body, and for that I am deeply regretful. But if we had not done so, if I had not lingered in the San Domenico churchyard after standing guard for my friends, you and I might never have met. Meeting you is one thing I will never regret.
I hope you like the painting. Consider tit a wedding gift. How stupid of me to let my heart go. It was a lovely fantasy while it lasted, though, wasn't it?
Yours,
Falco”
― Fiona Paul, quote from Venom

“I prefer to sleep while the rabble are out and about.”
― Douglas Preston, quote from White Fire

“When nonviolence in speech, thought, and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one’s presence. Yoga Sutras”
― quote from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga

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