“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”

John Boyne

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“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.”


“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”


“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.”


“Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day?Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away.Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away. ”


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


“He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.”