Code Name Verity Quotes
"I AM A COWARD. I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was."
"It seems petty, now. I am sure he was expecting my answer to be something defiant – ‘Give me Freedom’ or ‘Victory’ – or something generous."
"The warmth and dignity of my flannel skirt and woolly jumper are worth far more to me now than patriotism or integrity."
"You ignorant Quisling bastard, SS-Scharführer Etienne Thibaut, I AM SCOTTISH."
"Single-handedly I have brought down the 700-year-strong Auld Alliance between France and Scotland."
"For a blanket in my cold little room, SS-Hauptsturmführer Amadeus von Linden, I would without remorse or hesitation rat on my heroic ancestor William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland."
"More than anything else, I think, Maddie went to war on behalf of the Holy Island seals."
"And when you’re done slaving, I’m going to make you a mug of best Oakway Pilot’s Oily Tea, and tomorrow morning I’m going to march you into the nearest WAAF recruitment office."
"You would have thought our Maddie would go for a job in mechanics, wouldn’t you?"
"Yes, you! Aircraftwoman Brodatt! What are you doing here? You’re a licensed radio operator!"
"How in the name of mud is he going to find Berlin if he can’t find Manchester?"
"‘Those boys jolly well owe you their lives,’ he said to Maddie."
"‘Flight Lieutenant Mottram has been singing your praises,’ Maddie’s WAAF Section Officer told her."
"Our besieged island, alone on the edge of Europe."
"‘What were you on Civvie Street then –’ Maddie asked casually. ‘An actress?’"
"It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to."
"As long as we don't go anywhere more than five miles away, so I can get back sharpish if the weather clears."
"It's like being in love, discovering your best friend."
"I was born in the middle of a grouse moor on the opening day of the shooting season! I could fire a gun before I could read!"
"It’s astonishing, after ten minutes’ pedalling away from RAF Maidsend, how peaceful the drenched Kent countryside was."
"‘Stay here,’ Queenie choked. ‘Can you load another shell? I’ll find someone who knows what they’re doing to take over – you’ll be needed in the Tower now –’"
"Only once in a thousand years is a horse born so well fitted for the game as this our colt."
"Don’t cry. We’re still alive and we make a sensational team."
"‘You talk to the pilots?’ Queenie interrupted with interest. ‘There are other things you can do besides dance with them.’"
"For one moment she thought she was going to cry properly. Then she glanced over her shoulder and saw her passengers climbing in behind her."
"‘If you’re scared, do something,’ Maddie shouted, not without irony."
"‘Doing something should help,’ yelled the Yank from the back, enjoying the view ahead of him for different reasons than the rest of them."
"‘Looking at the horizon helps,’ yelled Maddie, her own far-seeing eyes focused on the distant place where the battered grey land met tumultuous grey cloud."
"‘Fly the plane, Maddie,’ she commanded hoarsely, an instructor’s reminder."
"See? You’re in control. You’re flying the plane. The Flying Scotsman!"
"God’s truth – the rim of the lowering sun, all they could see of it, had turned green."
"‘It’s called the Green Flash,’ she said. ‘It’s just a mirage, a trick of the light. Nothing to do with the war.’"
"Maddie closed her eyes and flew again in the ethereal, pale green light. She knew she would never let it go."
"You don’t need a map. Just fly this heading for as long as it takes to smoke two cigarettes. Then turn and fly the next heading for another cigarette."
"‘Cyanide?’ I asked tearfully. It would be such a humane way to go."
"‘How’d you know me for a friend of Jamie’s?’ ‘Yer boots,’ the station master said. ‘All you RAF lads wear the same boots."
"‘You lads,’ she said slowly, looking around at the grubby faces, ‘have been evacuated to a magic castle.’"
"‘Three minutes, who’s up?’ he announced, upending an extraordinary ormolu-gilt hourglass and displaying a boiled egg with a pair of silver sugar tongs."
"‘Second Officer Brodatt of the Air Transport Auxiliary,’ he introduced her."
"If someone needs to get to an airfield and you can get them there... you should always take them. Because someday you will need a ride to an airfield too."
"Truth is the daughter of time, not authority."
"You haven’t been able to trust your neighbour or the girl who brings you eggs."
"How could everything have come so fearfully and thoroughly unravelled?"
"‘April in Paris, eh?’ ‘Nearly as good as.’ Maddie ached for Paris, imprisoned, inaccessible, remote. ‘Not this year. Perhaps next!’"
"I’d have just played follow-my-leader after Jamie all the way to Paris if you hadn’t reminded me to turn."
"‘He’s not going to Paris, is he?’ ‘He won’t get to buzz the Eiffel Tower, but he’s picking up a couple of Parisian agents. He’ll have to land well outside the city.’"
"‘You didn’t need my help after all,’ she said, and passed him back his torch and map."
"‘"Careless talk costs lives,"’ Queenie retorted."
"‘I don’t talk,’ Maddie said. ‘What do you do?’"
"‘Calling the English for help would be collaboration,’ I gasped coldly. ‘I don’t depend on the English for anything. Go ahead and break my neck.’"
"‘It’s not a nice job,’ Queenie whispered. ‘It’s not like your job – blameless.’"
"‘I’m not blameless,’ said Maddie. ‘Every bomber I deliver goes operational and kills people. Civilians. People like my gran and granddad. Children. Just because I don’t do it myself doesn’t mean I’m not responsible. I deliver you.’"
"‘You’re the one who’s failed the Fatherland, you’re the one who’s been caught,’ I snarled at him."
"‘What does Isolde think of your war work?’ I asked."
"‘Isolde is innocent of my war work,’ he said."
"‘You have redeemed me.’ He straightened up and bowed his head courteously. Almost a salute."
"LIE! Lie to them, you stupid cow! Say anything! Stop being such a damned martyr and LIE!"
"‘Lie to them?’ she croaked. ‘Is that what you do?’"
"She has the filthiest tongue of any woman in France. Burn her mouth clean."
"Look at me, Amadeus von Linden, you sadistic hypocrite, and watch this time!"
"‘Coward! Coward!’ I sobbed in hysterical fury. ‘Do it now! Do it yourself!’"
"Patriotism is not enough – I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone."
"I am not Scottie. I am not Eva. I am not Queenie. I am Julie."
"I don’t mind not being stylish, but I am obviously wearing an odd collection of cast-offs and if I am seen, people will wonder."
"I understand now why her mother plays Mrs Darling and leaves the windows open in her children’s bedrooms when they’re away. As long as you can pretend they might come back there’s hope."
"There is no public record of the arrests. They happen every day."
"Everything leads to the Ormaie Gestapo. Well, they can be Fear Number 9."
"This ink is amazing, it really doesn’t smear even when you cry on it."
"The most disturbing thing was knowing it was meant to be me."
"Every time we came to an uphill slope, coughing and gasping like a dying Dickens heroine, and finally just stopped."
"You think their captured English airman might be Verity?"
"Good girl. Buck up, Kittyhawk! Not like you to blub."
"Shut your trap, Etienne, you donkey, you’ll give the kids nightmares! God! Why the hell do you stay there if it’s so horrible?"
"I don’t recognise any of my emotions anymore. There’s no such thing as plain joy or grief. It’s horror and relief and panic and gratitude all jumbled together."
"It’s like – it must be like palaeontology. Trying to put a dinosaur together based on a few random bones and you don’t even know if they’re all from the same kind of animal."
"Being a kid and worrying that the police might cut your head off is something else entirely."
"And all I can think of is where she is and how much I love her. And I start to cry again."
"The kids saw. They didn’t know what was going on or they’d have never gone to look, but they arrived just as it was happening and they saw it. SAW IT HAPPEN."
"Planes go over almost every night – there are some munitions factories working for the Germans and launch sites here in France that they are desperate to put out of action."
"Sometimes I wish it would – just one great big blast to wipe out the Castle of Butchers. I want that evil place to go up in flames. I want it so badly it hurts."
"I don’t believe she’s dead, I don’t believe any of their bluff and lies and bullying threats. I don’t believe she’s dead and I WON’T believe she’s dead until I hear the shots MYSELF and see her fall."
"It wasn’t so long ago. What is happening to us?"
"I wasn’t born to be a soldier. There’s a war on, so I’m delivering aeroplanes. But I don’t go looking for adventure or excitement, and I jolly well don’t go around picking fights with people. I like making things work. I love flying."
"A thousand thanks is not really enough. But I haven’t anything else to give her."
"Everybody else left in stages over the next two days."
"The flowers are sodden and dying in the December rain, but the sturdy bushes are still alive, and will be beautiful some day in the spring."
"I am going to drink this stuff now and try to sleep again."
"She was just – blazing with life and defiance one moment, then the next moment nothing but a senseless shell."
"If they hang me they will do it cleanly, break my neck instantly, and I will deserve it."
"It’s as though I’ve been underwater and breathing through a straw for the last two months, and now I have my head in the air again."
"What do you think would have happened to her if she had written this down?"
"I killed her. Verity, I mean. I shot her myself."
"I am trained to react positively to orders from people in authority."
"She was teaching me to foxtrot in the kitchen at Craig Castle."