The Boy At The Top Of The Mountain Quotes
"Having been born only weeks apart, Pierrot and Anshel had grown up practically as brothers, one mother taking care of both babies when the other needed a nap."
"Émilie, Pierrot’s mother, rarely talked about his father any more, although the boy still thought of him constantly."
"‘I don’t want you doing that any more, Pierrot,’ Maman told him one evening after his performance had caused a mild disagreement with some neighbours."
"‘But it wasn’t a dream,’ he heard his father say once, his voice trembling with distress. ‘It was worse than that. It was a memory.’"
"‘I love you too, Papa,’ said Pierrot. ‘But I love you most when you’re carrying me on your shoulders and pretending to be a horse. I don’t like it when you sit in the armchair and won’t talk to me or Maman.’"
"‘Papa is looking down at us now, D’Artagnan,’ he said. ‘And one day I am going to make him proud of me.’"
"‘The problem isn’t that he’s a Gentile, Ruth,’ said Mme Bronstein. ‘The problem is that I simply don’t have enough money to keep him.’"
"‘Take that off,’ she snapped, reaching forward and grabbing it before putting it back where he had found it."
"‘You’re with me,’ he said, making his way towards a horse and cart while Pierrot gazed at him, rooted to the spot."
"‘You can’t write your name on bread,’ said Pierrot."
"But your mother’s dead – that’s what I heard. And your father jumped under a train."
"Work will set us free – that's what the master says."
"The struggle of the German people and our ultimate victory is the story that will define our generation."
"You must show me the same respect that she would any soldier or officer."
"The pride he takes in his people. That's the way Papa used to talk too."
"I adore dogs. My favourite was a little black and white Jack Russell who deserted from the English army during the war and came over to the German side."
"Anything can be done. Look at me – I am the leader of a unified German people and I came from nothing. My father was a shoemaker."
"We will reclaim what is ours. Our land, our dignity, and our destiny."
"I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that by keeping you close I could protect you."
"Don’t ever pretend that you didn’t know what was going on here. You have eyes and you have ears. And you sat in that room on many occasions, taking notes. You heard it all. You saw it all. You knew it all."
"Let them continue with their fighting and their warring and their shooting and their killing, and perhaps they would leave him out of it."
"He was left with no choice. He would wait for them."
"Emptiness was the state he longed for. Emptiness and amnesia."
"Only when they were a mile or two away from the camp and certain that they were not being followed did they begin to relax."
"He made a friend, a rare thing for him, as the other dockyard workers had him down as something of a loner."
"Beneath those sleeves, he knew, was a number scarred into the skin, and Daniel, scarcely able to live with the memory of what had happened to his family, was forced to see an eternal reminder every time he looked down."