John Boyne

“It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.”

“(J)ust because your version of normal isn't the same as someone else's version doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.”

“You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life.”

“There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.”

“And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let it go.”

“Însă, în timp ce reflectă astfel, picioarele îl duseră pas cu pas din ce în ce mai aproape de punctul din depărtare, care între timp devenise o pată, apoi se transformă într-un strop. Și în curând după aceea, stropul deveni o siluetă. După care, când Bruno se apropie și mai mult, văzu că nu era nici punct, nici pată, nici strop, nici siluetă, ci o făptură. De fapt, era un băiat.”

“In his imagination he had thought that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had respect for their elders, not like the children nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived here would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. He had thought that there would be a shop in the centre, and maybe a small café like the ones he had known in Berlin; he had wondered whether there would be a fruit and vegetable stalls. As it turned out, all the things that he thought might be there - weren't.”

“And shortly after that the blob became a figure. And then, as Bruno got even closer, he saw that the thing was neither a dot nor a speck nor a blob nor a figure, but a person.”

“Those people... well, they're not people at all, Bruno”

“It's so unfair, I don't see whij I have to be stuck over here on this side of the fence where there's no one to talk to and no one to play with and you get to have dozens of friends are probably playing for hours every day, I'll have to speak to Father about it.”

“The history that one can create with a friend, a lifetime of history and shared experience, is a wonderful thing and shabbily sacrificed. And yet a true friend is a rare thing; sometimes those whom we perceive as friends are simply people with whom we spend a lot of time.”

“It reminds me of how grandmother always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be.”

“It's the countryside. Perhaps this is our holiday home.”

“When I make mistakes I get punished,' insisted Bruno, irritated by the fact that the rules that always applied to children never seemed to apply to grown-ups at all (despite the fact that they were the ones ho enforced them).”

“La niñez se mide a través de sonidos, olores y suspiros, antes de que aparezca la sombra obscura de la razón. (John Betjeman)”

“I think perhaps the adults we become are formed in childhood and there's no way around it.”

“Astonishing how everyone is willing to go abroad to fight for the rights of foreigners while having such little concern for those of their own countrymen at home.”

“One single syllable of intimacy and the world is put to rights.”

“In that direction only pain lies.”

“I think i'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.”

“ I can't bear to be on a train without a book", she announced. " It's a form of self-defence in a way" .”

“We all are [normal]. Their idea of normal just happens to be different to some other people's idea of normal. But this is the world we live in. Some people simply cannot accept something that is outside of their experience.”

“There were others, such as Jack London,who offered their readers such a respite from the miserable horror of existence that their books were like gifts from the gods. (Character of Tristan Sadler in "the Absolutist")”

“And I have tried to forget him, I have tried to convince myself that it was just one of those things, but it’s difficult to do that when my body is standing here, eight feet deep in the earth of northern France, while my heart remains by a stream in a clearing in England where I left it weeks ago.”

“Don't make it worse by thinking it's more painful than it actually is.”

“We're accustomed to the older generation looking down on the younger and telling them that they know nothing of the world. But things are rather out of kilter now, aren't they? It is your generation who understands the inhumanity of man, not ours. It's boys like you who have to live with what you have seen and what you have done. You've become the generation of response. While your elders can only look in your direction and wonder.”

“Regrets and apologies are all very well, but there's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them. They're like brands.”

“Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?’ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.”

“Neither your mother nor I have any imagination at all and we certainly didn't bring you up to have one”

“The last image I had of her was her sitting on the platform at Thorpe as a group of people stared at this distressed, weeping woman, and then her charging towards the glass of my window seat as the train pulled out of the station. I had gasped, thinking she meant to throw herself under the wheels, but no, she had simply wanted to attack me, that was all. If she had got her hands on me, she might have killed me. And I might have let her.”

“And soon afterwards this manuscript will appear, my final book... There will be outrage and disgust and people will turn on me at the last, they will hate me, my reputation will for ever be destroyed, my punishment earned, self-inflicted like this gunshot wound, and the world will finally know that I was the greatest feather man of them all.”

“It occurs to me that even though Zoya and I are both still alive, my life is already over. She will be taken from me soon and there will be no reason for me to continue without her. We are one person, you see. We are GeorgyandZoya.”

“You fought in the Great War?” a journalist from The Guardian asked me in a long interview to coincide with the presentation of the prize. “I didn’t think it was all that great.” I pointed out. “In fact, if memory serves, it was bloody awful.” “Yes, of course,” said the journalist, laughing uncomfortably. “Only you’ve never written about it, have you?” “Haven’t I?” “Not explicitly, at least.” He said, his face taking on an expression of panic, as if he had suddenly realized that he might have forgotten some major work along the way. “I suppose it depends on one’s definition of explicit,” I replied. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it any number of times. On the surface, occasionally. A little buried, at other times. But it’s been there, hasn’t it? Wouldn’t you agree? Or do I delude myself?” “No, of course not. I only meant—“ “Unless I’ve failed utterly in my work, that is. Perhaps I haven’t made my intentions clear at all. Perhaps my entire writing career has been a busted flush.” “No, Mr. Sadler, of course not. I think you misunderstood me. It’s clear that the Great War plays a significant part in your—“ At eighty-one, one has to find one’s fun where one can.”

“In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.”

“What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”

“The people I see from my window. In the huts, in the distance. They're all dressed the same.' 'Ah, those people,' said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. 'Those people...well, they're not people at all, Bruno.' Bruno frowned. 'They're not?' he asked, unsure what Father meant by that.”

“But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.”

“Se me ocurre que, incluso aunque Zoya y yo aún seguimos vivos, mi vida ha concluido ya. No tardaré en perderla y no habrá razón para que continúe sin ella. Verán, es que somos una sola persona. Somos GeorgiZoya.”

“Hay veces en que le envidio su juventud, pero trato de no pensar mucho en eso. Un anciano no debe tener celos de aquellos que vienen a ocupar su puesto, y recordar el tiempo en que era joven, sano y viril es un acto de masoquismo que no sirve de nada.”

“-Es muy bueno fingiendo ser alguien que no es -le comenté después a Zoya en el vestíbulo, cuando esperábamos para felicitarlo, sin saber muy bien si con esas palabras pretendía o no halagarlo-. No sé cómo lo hace. - Yo sí -repuso ella, sorprendiéndome.”

“He didn't want to play football. He wanted to be told the truth.”

“Seated opposite me in the railway carriage, the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders that she had committed over the years.”

“Their lost voices Must continue to be heard.”

“The dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy”

“Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground.As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.'' -The boy in the striped Pajamas”

“Very slowly he turned his head back to look at Shmuel, who wasn't crying anymore, merely staring at the floor and looking as if he was trying to convince his soul not to live inside his tiny body anymore, but to slip away and sail to the door and rise up into the sky, gliding through the clouds until it was very far away.'' -The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”

“...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.”

“He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly."You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.”

“Well you've been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we're all in the same boat. And it's leaking.”

“Heil Hitler," he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, "Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.”