“But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“But history does matter. There are lines connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Serbs and the Rwandans. They are obviously morbid. Really, how much genocide can one sentence handle? You get the point. Besides, my grandparents’ story deserves to be told, regardless of their nationalities.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“Those who participate in a genocide as well as those who merely look away rarely volunteer much in the way of anecdote or observation. Same with the heroic and the righteous. Usually it's only the survivors who speak-and often they don't want to talk much about it either. p. 75”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“How the Germans can remain allies with the Turks is beyond me. No European nation would ever commit the sorts of crimes that this regime is blithely committing right now.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“we have on earth exactly the amount of time that has been allotted to us, no more and no less. We really have precious little control.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“It was Aldous Huxley who observed, “Every man’s memory is his private literature.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“be wary of what I might learn. “No. Do you think I should?” “I don’t know. Maybe,” she replied, and in my mind I saw her in her high-backed bar stool at the island in the kitchen where the kids scarfed down their Lucky Charms before walking down the hill to school. Then, before I could answer, she went on, “It will be weird if we’re related to the woman in the photo.” “In what way?” “She’s so …” “Go ahead,” I said. “She’s not like us. Even if she is related to us, she’s not like us. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that she’s from a different world.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“She talks and talks because whenever she is silent she finds herself looking at him and her breath grows a little short.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
“are an Armenian,” says the Turk with the handgun. “I am.” “Where are you going?” “Damascus.” “Why?” “My sister lives there.” “What do you do?” “I’m an engineer. I’m working on the Baghdad Railway—the spur from Aleppo to Nusaybin.” “The British have captured Nasiriyah.” “I hadn’t heard that.” He nods. “Had you heard that an Armenian murdered a Turkish”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Sandcastle Girls
Chris Bohjalian
Born place: in White Plains, New York, The United States
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“Everything feels like the end of the world, and you can't reason with someone who can't see tomorrow.”
― Linda Howard, quote from Cry No More
“It's a soft-sounding word, 'never,' but its velvety timbre can't hide its sharp edges...Never pressed down on him. It grabbed him by the neck and shook him. He sucked in a deep breath, sucked in all that never and started to sneeze. Never filled his nose, his eyes, his soaking fur.”
― Kathi Appelt, quote from The Underneath
“Well,” I said, trying to keep my tone light as I walked over to put my arms around his neck, though I had to stand on my toes to do so. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You told me something about yourself that I didn’t know before-that you didn’t, er, care for your family, except for your mother. But that didn’t make me hate you…it made me love you a bit more, because now I know we have even more in common.”
He stared down at him, a wary look in his eyes. “If you knew the truth,” he said, “you wouldn’t be saying that. You’d be running.”
“Where would I go?” I asked, with a laugh I hoped didn’t sound as nervous to him as it did to me. “You bolted all the doors, remember? Now, since you shared something I didn’t know about you, may I share something you don’t know about me?”
Those dark eyebrows rose as he pulled me close. “I can’t even begin to imagine what this could be.”
“It’s just,” I said, “that I’m a little worried about rushing into this consort thing…especially the cohabitation part.”
“Cohabitation?” he echoed. He was clearly unfamiliar with the word.
“Cohabitation means living together,” I explained, feeling my cheeks heat up. “Like married people.”
“You said last night that these days no one your age thinks of getting married,” he said, holding me even closer and suddenly looking much more eager to stick around for the conversation, even though I heard the marina horn blow again. “And that your father would never approve it. But if you’ve changed your mind, I’m sure I could convince Mr. Smith to perform the ceremony-“
“No,” I said hastily. Of course Mr. Smith was somehow authorized to marry people in the state of Florida. Why not? I decided not to think about that right now, or how John had come across this piece of information. “That isn’t what I meant. My mom would kill me if I got married before I graduated from high school.”
Not, of course, that my mom was going to know about any of this. Which was probably just as well, since her head would explode at the idea of my moving in with a guy before I’d even applied to college, let alone at the fact that I most likely wasn’t going to college. Not that there was any school that would have accepted me with my grades, not to mention my disciplinary record.
“What I meant was that maybe we should take it more slowly,” I explained. “The past couple years, while all my friends were going out with boys, I was home, trying to figure out how this necklace you gave me worked. I wasn’t exactly dating.”
“Pierce,” he said. He wore a slightly quizzical expression on his face. “Is this the thing you think I didn’t know about you? Because for one thing, I do know it, and for another, I don’t understand why you think I’d have a problem with it.”
I’d forgotten he’d been born in the eighteen hundreds, when the only time proper ladies and gentlemen ever spent together before they were married was at heavily chaperoned balls…and that for most of the past two centuries, he’d been hanging out in a cemetery.
Did he even know that these days, a lot of people hooked up on first dates, or that the average age at which girls-and boys as well-lost their virginity in the United States was seventeen…my age?
Apparently not.
“What I’m trying to say,” I said, my cheeks burning brighter, “is that I’m not very experienced with men. So this morning when I woke up and found you in bed beside me, while it was really, super nice-don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much-it kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was…”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Underworld
“To the nights you'll never remember with the people you'll never forget.”
― Jillian Dodd, quote from That Wedding
“Robin Goodfellow, for all his pranks and mischief, was the sweetest, most noble person I’d ever known, and I’d missed him terribly.”
― Julie Kagawa, quote from The Iron Legends
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