Tears Of Amber Quotes
"Memories of the sun are memories of warmth, of colors finally as they were meant to be, not the sad imitations offered by overcast days."
"Children never learn as much as in the first three years of life. They learn, they live, but they never remember having learned or lived."
"Sometimes the sun was like the mythical Erdhenne, a spirit talked about without ever being seen."
"The work that seemed so boring to others connected him with his far-off home."
"It was on stories and on little else that a mother, a son, and a sickly little sister had lived in that solitary cabin."
"Loneliness drove the boy to the villages, but the company he found there didn’t know the power of stories."
"The fear faded, but the hunger and loneliness did not. They only grew."
"In the truck, he felt as if somebody had set his course."
"He understood the others: they’d left people behind; they’d tried to prevent the Germans from invading their villages; they’d been subdued by force."
"He was bound to nothing other than himself and what he carried inside: his mother’s stories."
"Her father, who’d survived the horrors of the trenches, had not wanted the family to live under the humiliation of Polish rule even a day longer than necessary."
"Wanda didn’t know where such speed came from. Or such silence."
"Germany, victorious, had invaded Poland and reestablished Prussia. That was what the Führer, the news, and her husband said; it was what everyone was saying. If that was the case, then why was Wanda the one who felt invaded?"
"He’d learned to be glad for life for its own sake; glad to live another day, and another, and another. Hungry, but alive to enjoy food another day. Cold, but alive to enjoy warmth when it came."
"And Karl feared for the future. But it was dangerous to express any doubts, so he exorcised his thoughts as much as he could—not even in the privacy of his inner being did he feel safe."
"At first, it had seemed as if there were only gains...But the war continued. And it devoured men."
"He went to the Wehrmacht offices to explain: He was a simple carpenter who’d never held a weapon, a worker on a family farm, father of four children and husband to a seriously ill wife. His family needed him."
"All he lived for was to complete the endless tasks his sergeant assigned."
"The boys wouldn’t help him deliver the chest of drawers. He wouldn’t leave them his portrait."
"Time passed in this way, without thought and so without worry."
"The photograph would go to war with its subject."
"All Karl knew for certain was that he wouldn’t see his family again."
"He’d try to send it by military post if he could."
"What would his children think that Sunday when he never arrived?"
"The truck that was to transport his battalion took two hours to arrive."
"This war wasn’t nearly won; quite the opposite: it had grown into a monster, a hydra."
"Normally, going to church was not on Arno’s list of favorite activities."
"You’re only six. By the time you have your first communion, you’ll understand everything."
"Arno was looking forward to the day when he’d finally understand it all."
"What’s more, Sunday morning church had become a signal: Vater will be here soon."
"Ilse’s short but definitive list of things to fear didn’t include the motorcycle."
"The motorcycle was her father’s, but it was hers, too."
"But what she liked most about the castle was the rose garden."
"That day, Ilse didn’t have to worry about tardiness."
"Ilse finished her snack, but Papa still hadn’t come back."
"It was almost impossible to have a conversation over the roar of the engine and the wind in their ears."
"Ilse didn’t want to fly out, crack her head open, and die."
"But it was closeness that they sought, and looks were enough to tell each other."
"Ilse had learned the routine of this town so far from home."
"The day started early with a visit from a neighbor who knew where there was bread that was fairly fresh."
"The park was what Ilse liked most about her vacation in Schneidemühl."
"For an hour, Martha taught them to play the circle games that she and Irmgard didn’t know."
"Wanda didn’t know any Jews, but she’d lived among Poles as a child and now again as a married woman."
"It was clear to her that there were dirty and ignorant Poles, of course, but there were also Germans like that."
"The Volksempfänger radio receiver...proclaiming the greatness of the German bloodline and the savagery of undesirable bloods."
"She tried to be positive. She had Freddy, and now Edeline."
"Wanda’s heart shrank when they went to the train station."
"Wanda and Hartwig wanted the optimists to be right, so they bit back their doubts."
"But the next morning, as she fed Edeline, Hartwig returned pale faced."
"I’m coming! She tried to run as lightly as before to get back to the house."
"Ilse was breathless by the time they went out."
"All she could see, all she wanted to see now, after seeing too much, was Irmgard’s firm hand in her own and the ground she trod."
"That night, Ilse didn’t run easily like she had in her dream: The journey took her breath away, pricking her bare legs with gravel and flying glass."
"But that night, during those minutes when the sky seemed to fall on top of her, all Ilse wanted—all she could do—was to look after her shoes so that someone else could use them in the future."
"The anticipation of the familiar words soothed Ilse. Everything would be fine, because the words were for God and they’d please Him."
"In the horror stories she sometimes told, the monster always emerged from Russia’s frozen forests."
"He loved stories—they made life bearable—but Janusz had no illusions: he didn’t live in a story where anything was possible."
"His daughter had knitted them, and they lightened life in the war that weighed on him far more than the burden on his back."
"With such machinery, how could they not win the war in what remained of summer?"
"He did his part for Germany, but he didn’t have to enjoy the death he caused."
"In time, thanks to them, his calluses regained their hard-won size and hardness."
"Arno was the only Schipper who could contend with the ram."
"And Arno talked to him on the way, as he always did: calmly."
"The city was hungry and cold; its inhabitants were dying by the thousands."
"Time neither listens to reason, nor obeys orders, nor forgives carelessness."
"Now fall had passed, one day at a time, as it had since the dawn of history, and the Russian winter had arrived."
"The message that the Führer sent to the Soviet front early in the siege... 'Your names, soldiers of the German armed forces, and the names of our brave allies, the names of your divisions and regiments and your tank forces and air squadrons, will be associated forever with the most tremendous victories in history.'"
"And although the commanders kept up the pretense that Leningrad would soon fall, not even the most naive of their soldiers were under that delusion anymore."
"To every request they made to Berlin, the answer was yes, but what arrived was never enough."
"It was impossible to send a letter home when one’s hand trembled so much it couldn’t hold a pen."
"And if he had to die of hunger, of cold, and of neglect, he wanted to take his home to the grave with him."
"In winter, son, sometimes you have to half die so you can live."
"Eat everything on your plate today because you don’t know whether you’ll have anything tomorrow."
"He could go reassured, then, he thought. If he could open his eyes. If he could rise, leave his body’s weight behind, he’d go."
"The war was over for him? Karl didn’t believe it and didn’t want any words of comfort from the person who’d taken away his anesthetic."
"What he didn’t know was that, by the time he’d made this decision, the drug’s siren song had already softened thanks to six months of forced and arduous abstinence."
"The smell of damp wood filled his senses and the hammer in his fist anchored him to life."
"It was impossible to reply, but, Grandma, my father’s doing his part, too."
"She could learn to embroider or bake the almond cookies she loves so much."
"A farmer knows everything there is to know and never feels shocked or disgusted."
"Her marriage was between two—and Adolf Hitler had no place in it."
"The war of hunger roared in, raising dust behind it."
"Wars aren’t won by starving boys in stranded vehicles."
"A carpenter knows about creation, about construction, but pulleys? A little, perhaps, but what does he know about engines and cogwheels?"
"He hoped, if that happened, that his mount would respond calmly to its rider’s commands."
"Eating meat gave him at least another day of life, he told himself, excused himself."
"By the end of his war, he was no longer able to banish envy and desire from his thoughts."
"He ordered himself to never fall into temptation."
"We’ll all burn in this war. Will it be in fleeting fires or one enormous conflagration?"
"If I manage it well, that wood will last me the rest of the winter and part of the next, if a bomb doesn’t drop on me first."
"His desire to forget and have fun kept him impermeable, or at least, impervious."
"Nor would his mother forgive it, he knew. It would be hard enough for her to forgive his intentional absence, his thoughtless diversion of a few hours."
"The war’s going to kill them before they’re even conscripted, and if it doesn’t, I’ll spank them to death myself the next time they’re late."
"But even so, he didn’t want to get home. Would his mother scold him badly? If so, he’d face up to it and apologize."
"He wanted to go to the library; that was all."
"A soldier cries oceans, but he learns to do it in silence if he wants to survive the war."
"War or peace, her mother didn’t allow scruffy daughters to roam the house."
"Where there was no longer joy, it had to be created again."
"Every Sunday at church, there was at least one family saying goodbye to a dead soldier, without a body present."
"She knew she was a lucky girl: the war hadn’t taken away her world, it hadn’t wiped it out."