All The Broken Places Quotes
"If every man is guilty of all the good he did not do, then I have spent a lifetime convincing myself that I am innocent of all the bad."
"The truth is, I am simply not comfortable around children and I find small boys particularly difficult."
"I’ve seen what politics does to people. I stay out of it."
"But once they started pointing nuclear bombs in our direction, I rather lost interest. No one needs another war, do they?"
"Sometimes people make enquiries. There’s a lot of demand for property in this part of London."
"I’m in excellent health for someone my age and if I went to live in a nursing home, I guarantee that I’d be dead within the year."
"Everyone likes to think they’re different from their parents, but underneath, we’re all pale imitations."
"The truth is, the shop was meant to go to Louis. He was older than me by four years and Papa always intended that he would inherit."
"I refused to live in the past. It can’t be true, I don’t think. What they say about these camps, about the things that went on there."
"For the first time, I fully understood that I would have to lie about everything, every day, for the rest of my life, if I was to survive."
"Was this how boys felt towards the girls they kissed? That they wanted us but despised us the very moment that desire was reciprocated."
"To lose a parent, well, that’s the nature of life. But to lose a brother? This is a thing that will haunt me forever."
"I’ll be thirty-two next month. Of course, I married very young."
"He suffered terribly from asthma. Then, during hay-fever season... he started sneezing. It went on and on... He started to choke."
"There’s a hint of Central European in your speech. If I had to guess, I would say German."
"He falls in love with every girl he meets. Old or young. They say that he has an insatiable desire for women."
"Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth."
"And you’re stupid too. So stupid. Do you know how many times you confused Nantes with Nice?"
"Why would I ever tell the truth to a putain like you?"
"I don’t think you’re being honest with me. I’m good with accents and I don’t hear much French in your voice."
"Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams."
"Guilt intruded upon any happy moment, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure."
"I spent almost a year in the hospital but remember little of my early months there."
"I do recall a certain sense of contentment, though, a feeling that I had somehow managed to escape the world at last."
"In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that it took so long for me finally to have the breakdown that had been coming on for decades."
"I considered having an abortion, but the idea of some filthy, back-street pseudo-clinic terrified me."
"I prayed instead that I would miscarry, but no, my body seemed determined to see the business through."
"Occasionally, on a warm afternoon, I like to wander down there and take a seat beneath one of the parasols."
"For someone who thinks she has no skills in the acting department, you, my dear, have the one thing that every actress needs above all others."
"‘It’s called Autumn Valley,’ said Caden, handing me the brochure for the retirement village."
"Winter Valley would be more appropriate, don’t you think?"
"I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think we might be neighbours."
"‘Don’t tell him,’ she whispered, clinging on to my arm, ‘Promise me you won’t tell him.’"
"I was just a boy of nineteen. I wasn’t going to give up my life that easily."
"I’ve participated in hundreds of operations over the years and lost fifteen patients. I remember each one that died."
"I don’t think anyone would have taken her for a doctor."
"I waited until the following Tuesday, my half-day from work, to visit again."
"I’m sure you’ll receive your inheritance in due course, if that’s what you’re worried about."
"I made my way quickly back along the esplanade, holding tightly to Hugo’s hand."
"I had always suspected we would meet again someday."
"It was like being in the presence of something otherworldly."
"It turns out that we’re exactly the same, you and me. The world would never forgive either of us for what we have done, so what is the point of exposure?"
"I stood up now too and, to my surprise, found that we were somehow locked in a kiss."
"Goodbye, Fraülein Gretel. It was a pleasure to be in your company once more, but it is the final time. We won’t meet again."
"I could be in France, Australia or England, I could find myself living on Mars, but no matter where I was, those beautiful scars that Kurt had spoken of would always drag me back to that other place."
"‘Because I’m twelve and you’re only nine,’ I said."
"‘It’s not a matter of liking, Gretel,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of doing what is asked of me.’"
"Generals come and go, but financiers – that is where the true power lies."
"You must never be frightened of this place. The world is being reborn here."
"‘Everyone must work,’ I replied. ‘The Führer says that work will set us free. Every man, every woman, every child must contribute, and bread costs money.’"
"I have witnessed fear in ways that you could not possibly imagine."
"Life’s too short for playing games. If we’ve learned anything from these last fifteen years, it should be that."
"You’re the most annoying sister in the world!"
"‘But it’s not a farm!’ he roared. ‘I know that much!’"
"And if I were to ask you out for a beer sometime, might you come?"
"‘You talk too much, Mrs Fernsby,’ he said, his voice low but hissing venom."
"I’m sure I’ll be able to track it down. You strike me as an interesting woman, Mrs Fernsby."
"It’s not like me to put myself at such risk."
"It’s just … men killing women because they can’t control them."
"You have to tell the police and let them deal with it. Otherwise, you know how this will end."
"‘Someone so wonderful,’ he said. ‘You’re intelligent, funny, beautiful. Endlessly fascinating.’"
"We can’t just let him keep hurting them. We have to do something."
"He’s told us what he’ll do if anyone finds out."
"‘My father died when I was just a girl,’ I said."