John Boyne Quotes

“Their lost voices Must continue to be heard.”

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

“Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.”

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

“(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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?”

“… only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”