“She thought it must be a lonely life for a boy who hated books.”

“It is much easier to believe lies than the truth." "Why?" asked Janna. "Because lies are manufactured to satisfy the emotions. A mother would rather believe her pretty girl lazy than accept the fact that she's a dumb cluck. Germans would rather believe they were stabbed in the back than that they lost a fair fight. And anyone would rather blame someone else for his misfortunes. The truth is hard. Don't fool with it unless you realize that.”

“In the camp we saw our own people kill each other over a crust of bread. In the old days I used to think that religion did not matter much, that people could be good without it. That was not true in the camps. If you had no hope or faith to keep you human, you sank to the lowest depths. I'll practice my religion more faithfully now.”

“Read the inscription," he said. I opened the book. On the flyleaf it said: "To Hilda, so that on the day we part the substance of my hopes for the future and my predestined struggle will remain with you. Ernesto 20-1-55.”

“O do not weep, she says,for ages past I wasand I endure”

“At least I have the flowers of myself,and my thoughts, no godcan take that;I have the fervour of myself for a presenceand my own spirit for light;and my spirit with its lossknows this;though small against the black,small against the formless rocks,hell must break before I am lost;before I am lost,hell must open like a red rosefor the dead to pass.”

“...if you do not even understand what words say, how can you expect to pass judgement on what words conceal?”