Quotes from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

Denise Kiernan ·  373 pages

Rating: (19.2K votes)


“They fought to smile through the lines and the mud and the long hours, dancing under the stars and under the watchful eyes of their government, an Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“Case in point: On one of their first dates, he brought her a box of Ivory Flakes soap. Who needs flowers? Roses fade, but flaky soap available from the PX lasted months. Having Ivory Flakes was a rarity in itself, and also saved her valuable time—one less line to stand in, only to find that the grocer was out. Again. That was romance, as far as Colleen was concerned. Maybe this guy was a keeper after all.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“I hope for some sort of peace—but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up perhaps there’ll be no reason for any of it. I hope not. But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we forge too deeply into the planet there will be a reckoning—who knows?”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“A dictator decrees,” she later wrote, “a president asks Congress for permission to organize.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“The "hillbilly" girls were generating more enriched Tubealloy per run than the PhDs had...The District Engineer understood perfectly. Those girls...had been trained like soldiers. Do what you're told. Don't ask why.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II



“Whether or not you agree with the outcome, the tremendous amount that the Manhattan Project accomplished in such a short amount of time–just under three years–is astonishing. It makes you wonder what other kinds of things could be accomplished with that kind of determination, effort, and financial and political support. What if the kind of money, manpower, and resources that went into the Manhattan Project went into the fight against hunger? Cancer? Homelessness?”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“The more she thought about it, the more she realized: Oak Ridgers had kept the most amazing secret ever.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“On occasion, people who tried to write family members living at Site X by addressing the letters to “Oak Ridge” got those letters returned to sender with a note reading simply: “There is no such place as Oak Ridge, Tennessee.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“In 1942, a new secret came to this part of the world. The earth trembled and shook and made way for an unprecedented alliance of military, industrial, and scientific forces, forces that combined to create the most powerful and controversial weapon known to mankind. This weapon released the power present in the great unseen of the time, unleashing the energy of the basic unit of matter known as the atom. Author”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“She deemed Fermi’s work inconclusive, and in late 1934, she published her views on Fermi’s findings in an article titled “Über Das Element 93” (On Element 93), in which she proposed an idea that seemed unrealistic”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II



“seemed to know what was going on, not even the”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


“The most ambitious war project in military history rested squarely on the shoulders of tens of thousands of ordinary people, many of them young women.”
― Denise Kiernan, quote from The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II


Video

About the author

Denise Kiernan
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“There can be no progress nor achievement without sacrifice, and a man's worldly success will be by the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think


“Cinstea mai presus de toate. Un sceptic convins in toate celelalte privinte, Ernest credea cu o fervoare fundamentalista in forta tamaduitoare a cinstei. Catehismul lui cerea cinste – insa o cinste temperata, selectiva. Si cinste responsabila, plina de grija: cinste in serviciul ingrijirii.”
― Irvin D. Yalom, quote from Momma and the Meaning of Life: Tales of Psychotherapy


“বুঝছ না? আমাদের তো শুধু একটা চেহারা, সর্দারের চেহারা। কিন্তু ওর-যে এক পিঠে গোঁসাই, আর-এক পিঠে সর্দার। নামাবলিটা একটু ফেঁসে গেলেই সেটা ফাঁস হয়ে পড়ে। তাই সর্দারিধর্মটা নিজের অগোচরে পালন করতে হয়, তা হলে নামজপের বেলায় খুব বেশি বাধে না।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Red Oleanders


“Most lead lives at worst so painful, at best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principle appetites of the soul.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from The Doors of Perception


“You're the one taking all the romance out of this," he said. "It's supposed to go, 'that was so brave, how you stood up for your sister like that!' 'Oh, that, what, no, it's what any dragon would do.' 'No, no - you're special. I can tell.' 'Not as special as you. There's a magic about you I've never found in any other dragon!' 'Why - why do I feel as though I've known you forever?' 'Because you have...and you will.' Fireworks! True love and happiness for the rest of our lives!”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from Darkstalker


Interesting books

The Lords of Discipline
(22K)
The Lords of Discipl...
by Pat Conroy
Lisey's Story
(58.3K)
Lisey's Story
by Stephen King
Dance with the Devil
(55.9K)
Dance with the Devil
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Twilight
(35.3K)
Twilight
by Meg Cabot
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
(162K)
Nickel and Dimed: On...
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Beautiful Chaos
(84K)
Beautiful Chaos
by Kami Garcia

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.