The Nightingale Quotes
"In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."
"The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present."
"I want to imagine there will be peace when I am gone, that I will see all of the people I have loved and lost."
"I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known."
"At my age, I should not be afraid of anything—certainly not my own past."
"I have aged in the months since my husband’s death and my diagnosis."
"The war. It was all anyone could talk about these days, and I didn’t want to hear it."
"We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention."
"Grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us."
"Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward."
"Life is a battle, but you can't fight it with your fists. You got to fight it with your heart."
"An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road."
"Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories."
"Someone pounded on the side door. The copper pots and pans hanging in the kitchen clanged together, made a sound like church bells."
"Vianne backed away. What if the doors didn’t hold? So many people could break down doors and windows, even walls."
"Vianne sat down beside her daughter and took her in her arms, letting Sophie curl up as if she were a much littler girl."
"The town square, usually full of people, had practically emptied."
"In the kitchen, she found her potato soup simmering a bit too briskly, so she uncovered it and lowered the heat."
"Isabelle had traded kisses with boys as if they were pennies to be left on park benches and lost in chair cushions—meaningless."
"Her own government—cowards that they were —had known that. It was why they had emptied much of the Louvre and put fake paintings on the museum walls."
"But has the last word been said? Has all hope disappeared? Is the defeat final?"
"Rachel moved closer to Isabelle. 'That was a long time ago,' Rachel said gently. 'We were young and stupid and selfish.'"
"How long did Vianne stand there alone, trembling, trying to get her nerves under control?"
"Her chores were necessary, of course—a new way of preparing for a winter that seemed far away but would arrive like an unwanted guest on the worst possible day."
"It was the uncertainty that gnawed at her: Was he a prisoner of war? Was he wounded somewhere? Dead? Or would she look up one day and see him walking up this road, smiling?"
"In a world now laden with bad news and silence, the one bit of good news was that Captain Beck had spent much of the summer away on one campaign or another."
"A military lorry honked at them and they moved farther onto the sidewalk as a convoy rumbled past. More Nazis."
"Furtive. At that, a dozen little pieces clicked into place. Tiny incongruities became a pattern."
""I’m not sneaking out," Isabelle said. "I’m going to the shops for food. I thought you wanted that of me."
"Vianne wished she knew her sister well enough to read the look in her eyes. Was it guilt? Or worry or defiance?"
"People had begun to leave Carriveau, abandoning their homes to the Germans."
""He is in a prisoner of war camp." He handed her a list of names and a stack of official postcards. "He will not be coming home."
"The world was at war and everything was scarce and your husband was gone."
""You will have to be," Isabelle said. "For Sophie."
""I don’t know how to be on my own," Vianne said."
""I am sorry," Isabelle said. "But V, you need to be more careful."
""The path of righteousness is often dangerous. Get ready, Vianne. This is only your first test."
""Would you, Helene? Would you really?" Vianne said."
""I haven’t seen you at my butcher shop recently," Madame Fournier said to Vianne in a judgmental voice."
""But Vianne, you need to be more careful. I know Beck is young and handsome and friendly and polite, but he’s a Nazi, and they are dangerous."
""If love is a disease, I suppose I’m infected."
""I am not sneaking out," Isabelle said. "I’m going to the shops for food."
"Snap out of it. She was a courier, not a frightened schoolgirl. What risk there was she accepted."
"These are dangerous times, Sophie. You need to understand that."
"Hold my daughter tightly tonight, and tell her that somewhere far away, her papa is thinking of her."
"We are all fragile, Isabelle. It’s the thing we learn in war."
"There’s no fair in life and death, Teddy. What’s her name?"
"All she could think of was taking this step, and the next one, and the next one."
"The only real difference was the men falling."
"Eat and sleep. Tomorrow we make the final trek."
"I’ve been told I don’t make smart decisions."
"When you were allowed to stop, you drank, you ate, you slept."
"She trudged forward on blistered, aching feet."
"The consulate, the consulate, the consulate."
"I’ve brought four RAF pilots with me from Paris."
"A girl leading pilots across the Pyrenees. Will wonders never cease?"
"Only a few days after her arrival in San Sebastian, Isabelle was on the train bound for Paris again."
"Isabelle slipped the envelope full of franc notes from her pocket and handed it to Anouk."
"I’ll take them for you, Lily," Isabelle said, trying to sound calm.
"I don’t know how to help her. There are no aspirin or antibiotics to be had at any price in town."
"We can’t swim across. The rains have made the river a beast that will swallow us all."
"I brought you four downed airmen from Paris."
"Sarah drew in a shuddering breath and went still."
"It happens that way sometimes. God takes you unexpectedly."
"The roar of aeroplanes overhead was nearly constant."
"We are talking when we need to be acting," Isabelle said.
"If this is any other time, I would sit down beside Rachel."
"I have no idea what I will need, and I'm not really thinking straight anyway."
"She hadn’t had someone with whom to strategize or work through her problems."
"I hid her all day," Vianne said again, as if it mattered now."
"You are a good friend, Vianne Mauriac," she said quietly."
"I am just a housewife. What could I possibly know of such things?"
"You’re the reason we’re here," Isabelle said.
"There’s no more bread today, Herr Lieutenant."
"The only thing that matters, Gaetan."
"We need to leave," Vianne said to Sophie. "Now."
"How can I let her believe it’s all right to do nothing in times such as these?"
"I hope so. Take Daniel into the house and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me."
"Come, Jean Georges, we are going for a walk."
"Be careful, Vianne. You are doing the right thing."
"You’re as beautiful as I remember," he said, and she actually laughed, and then she cried.
"I am Isabelle Rossignol," she said quietly, hearing her name swallowed by the darkness.
"We will remind each other, oui! On the dark days. We will be strong for each other."
"We are all changed by this war, Soph. Daniel is your brother now that Rachel is ... gone. Truly your brother."
"He loved her and she loved him. All her life she had waited—longed for—people to love her, but now she saw what really mattered. She had known love, been blessed by it."
"Magic," Julien said, and that is precisely true.