Quotes from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“If you wake up in the morning, it is a good day.”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“What they all share is fear. And youth. And their religion. Lale tries to keep his mind off theorising about what might lie ahead. He has been told he is being taken to work for the Germans, and that is what he is planning to do. He thinks of his family back home. 'Safe'. He has made the sacrifice, has no regrets. He would make it again and again to keep his beloved family at home, together.”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“Well, Lale, a man who lectures in taxation and interest rates can't help but get involved in the politics of his country. Politics will help you understand the World until you don't understand it anymore, and then it will get you thrown into a prison camp. Politics and religion both”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“What has this place done to us? What has it made us become? How much longer can we go on? She thought it was all ending today.”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“Lale smiles at him. ‘Not what I was expecting either.’ ‘Where do you think we’re going?’ ‘It doesn’t matter. Just remember, we are here to keep our families safe”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“The girls who work there dream of a place far away where there is plenty of everything and life can be what they want it to be. They have decided Canada is such a place.”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“the girl’s arm as gently as he can, the man takes her face in his hand and turns it roughly this way and that. Lale looks”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

“occasionally nods off against his shoulder; Lale doesn’t push him away. He is just one among countless young men stuffed into”
― Heather Morris, quote from The Tattooist of Auschwitz

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“I sucked on a blade of grass and watched the millwheel turn. I was lying on my stomach on the stream's opposite bank, my head propped in my hands. There was a tiny rainbow in the mist above the froth and boil at the foot of the waterfall, and an occasional droplet found its way to me. The steady splashing and the sound of the wheel drowned out all other noises in the wood. The mill was deserted today, and I contemplated it because I had not seen its like in ages. Watching the wheel and listening to the water were more than just relaxing. It was somewhat hypnotic. …
My head nodding with each creak of the wheel, I forced everything else from my mind and set about remembering the necessary texture of the sand, its coloration, the temperature, the winds, the touch of salt in the air, the clouds...
I slept then and I dreamed, but not of the place that I sought.
I regarded a big roulette wheel, and we were all of us on it-my brothers, my sisters, myself, and others whom I knew or had known-rising and falling, each with his allotted section. We were all shouting for it to stop for us and wailing as we passed the top and headed down once more. The wheel had begun to slow and I was on the rise. A fair-haired youth hung upside down before me, shouting pleas and warnings that were drowned in the cacophony of voices. His face darkened, writhed, became a horrible thing to behold, and I slashed at the cord that bound his ankle and he fell from sight. The wheel slowed even more as I neared the top, and I saw Lorraine then. She was gesturing, beckoning frantically, and calling my name. I leaned toward her, seeing her clearly, wanting her, wanting to help her. But as the wheel continued its turning she passed from my sight. “Corwin!”
I tried to ignore her cry, for I was almost to the top. It came again, but I tensed myself and prepared to spring upward. If it did not stop for me, I was going to try gimmicking the damned thing, even though falling off would mean my total ruin. I readied myself for the leap. Another click... “Corwin!”
It receded, returned, faded, and I was looking toward the water wheel again with my name echoing in my ears and mingling, merging, fading into the sound of the stream.
…
It plunged for over a thousand feet: a mighty cataract that smote the gray river like an anvil. The currents were rapid and strong, bearing bubbles and flecks of foam a great distance before they finally dissolved. Across from us, perhaps half a mile distant, partly screened by rainbow and mist, like an island slapped by a Titan, a gigantic wheel slowly rotated, ponderous and gleaming. High overhead, enormous birds rode like drifting crucifixes the currents of the air.
We stood there for a fairly long while. Conversation was impossible, which was just as well. After a time, when she turned from it to look at me, narrow-eyed, speculative, I nodded and gestured with my eyes toward the wood. Turning then, we made our way back in the direction from which we had come.
Our return was the same process in reverse, and I managed it with greater ease. When conversation became possible once more, Dara still kept her silence, apparently realizing by then that I was a part of the process of change going on around us.
It was not until we stood beside our own stream once more, watching the small mill wheel in its turning, that she spoke.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Great Book of Amber

“There's one way. Only one. Mine." Balthazar stepped closer, using every inch he had on Lucas, who was tall but not that tall. "Charity is a person. The same as you, the same as me."

"You and me aren't the same."

Balthazar cocked his head. "Then let's say the same as Bianca. Will that make you listen?"

"Bianca's no killer! She didn't have a choice about what she is."

"Guys, don't do this," I pleaded, but they paid no attention.

"A choice? You think we all get a choice?" Although Balthazar spoke softly, there was a roughness to his voice I'd never heard before. It sent chills down my spine. "Try being hunted down in the night. Try running as far and as fast as you can and finding out their faster. Try coming to in a stable, with your parents' dead bodies on the ground in front of you, your hands roped above your head and a dozen hungry vampires arguing with each other about who gets you next. See how much choice you have then."

Lucas just stared at him. Obviously he'd never imagined anything like that; neither had I.

Even more quietly, Balthazar continued, "Try watching your baby sister die, and then tell me that you wouldn't spend the rest of eternity trying to make up for it. When you've done all that, Lucas, then you can talk to me about choices. Until that time, tell me what I need to know and then shut your mouth.”
― Claudia Gray, quote from Stargazer

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
― W.B. Yeats, quote from The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“Love, he realized, was like the daggers he made in his forge: When you first got one it was shiny and new and the blade glinted bright in the light. Holding it against your palm, you were full of optimism for what it would be like in the field, and you couldn't wait to try it out. Except those first couple of nights out were usually awkward as you got used to it and it got used to you.

Over time, the steel lost its brand-new gleam, and the hilt became stained, and maybe you nicked the shit out of the thing a couple of times. What you got in return, however, saved your life: Once the pair of you were well acquainted, it became such a part of you that it was an extension of your own arm. It protected you and gave you a means to protect your brothers; it provided you with the confidnece and the power to face whatever came out of the night; and wherever you went, it stayed with you, right over your heart, always there when you needed it.

You had to keep the blade up, however. And rewrap the hilt from time to time. And double-check the weight.

Funny...all of that was well, duh when it came to weapons. Why hadn't it dawned on him that matings were the same?

(From the thoughts of Vishous)”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Unleashed

“Greg starts a middle school and asks: Why
is "bullies" such a big PROBLEM? And says
people need to shave twice a day.”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Diary of a Wimpy Kid

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