A Night Divided Quotes
"But every minute that passed sharpened my worries."
"So much of Berlin had been destroyed in the war, and even now, twenty years later, piles of rubble were still strewn about the city."
"Without speaking, she grabbed my hand and yanked me into a walk so fast that to keep up with her, I almost had to jog along."
"The only people who knew for sure were either the agents, or people subjected to their interrogations or tortures."
"There were some things even a mother couldn’t fix."
"Whether that was true or not, I chose to believe."
"A cold rain was falling early the next morning, making it hard to leave my bed."
"Celebrate his coming home? The Stasi had arrested him and obviously questioned him by force."
"In response to Mama’s question, the foreman shook his head and his mouth was turned in a distinct frown."
"We were the reason they had caught him. The reason he was killed."
"All my mother said was, 'They told Fritz it was only for questioning, but the foreman doesn’t know if that’s true.'"
"I’m going to Herr Krause’s apartment next door. He will know if there’s anything we can do."
"The penalties for being an accessory to the attempt to flee the [GDR] were greater than the crime of trying to flee itself."
"But there was no reason, none at all, why my father would go to the trouble of putting anything special inside this one, so far from home."
"I never should have printed those papers," he said. "Do you hear me? I was wrong."
"No!" The woman pushed his hand away as if he had offered poison rather than help.
"The more I try to do what they want, the more I understand that my life has been put on this track to failure."
"Freedom lies in being bold." — Robert Frost, American poet
"Forge the iron while it is hot." — German proverb
"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable." — Franz Kafka, German author
"There are none so blind as those that will not see." — German proverb
"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman
"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman
"A steady drop will carve the stone." — German proverb
"To begin is easy, to persist is art." — German proverb
"If you live among wolves, you have to act like a wolf." — Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Union premier, 1958–1964
"Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good." — Bertolt Brecht, German playwright
"One today is better than ten tomorrows." — German proverb
"Shut your mouth, then no mosquito flies into it." — German proverb
"Lost goods, lost something; lost honor, lost much; lost courage, lost all." — German proverb
"An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts." — Otto von Bismarck, creator of the German Empire
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it." — Nelson Mandela, South African activist
"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope." — Martin Luther, German priest
"He only earns his freedom and his life who takes them every day by storm." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman
"It’s not as fun as I thought it’d be. It could be a long time before we see if anything grows."
"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." — John F. Kennedy, US President, 1962
"God preserve me from my friends, I can deal with my enemies." — German proverb
"A disaster seldom comes alone." — German proverb
"No one knows where the shoe pinches, but he who wears it." — German proverb
"Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder …" — Albert Schweitzer, German theologian, physician, and philanthropist
"There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free." — Walter Cronkite, American journalist, 1965
"Many kiss the hand they wish to cut off." — German proverb
"They do not have the courage to say it was a wall of disgrace." — Helmut Kohl, chancellor of West Germany when the wall came down