“Zakhor. Al Tichkah. Remember. Never forget.”

“Emile was not like you, not attached to houses. For you, houses are like people, are they not, they have a soul, a heart, they live and breathe. Houses remember.”

“I wanted to say sorry, I wanted to tell her I could not forget the roundup, the camp, Michel's death, and the direct train to Auschwitz that had taken her parents away forever. Sorry for what? he had retaliated, why should I, an American, feel sorry, hadn't my fellow countrymen freed France in June 1944? I had nothing to be sorry for, he laughed.I had looked at him straight in the eyes.Sorry for not knowing. Sorry for being forty-five years old and not knowing.”

“Michel. In my dreams, you come and get me. You take me by the hand and you lead me away. This life is too much for me to bear. I look at the key and I long for you and for the past. For the innocent, easy days before the war. I know now my scars will never heal. I hope my son will forgive me. He will never know. No one will ever know.”

“You were a quiet man, yet you took up a vast amount of silent space and that was what I missed.”

“Trangen til å lese tok meg og holdt meg i sitt deilige, berusende grep. Jo mer jeg leste, desto mer hungret jeg. Hvert verk var rikt på løfter; hver side jeg bladde om, var en eventyrferd, tiltrekning fra en annen verden.”

“She couldn't imagine why there was such a difference between those children and her. She couldn't imagine why she and all these other people with her had to be treated this way. Who decided this, and what for?”