Quotes from book
Sophie's Choice

Name: Sophie's Choice
Author: William Styron

Sophie's Choice is a 1979 novel by American author William Styron. It concerns the relationships between three people sharing a boarding house in Brooklyn: Stingo, a young aspiring writer from the South, and the Jewish scientist Nathan Landau and his lover Sophie, a Polish Catholic survivor of the German Nazi concentration camps, whom he befriends.

“This was not judgement day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Last lines
Source: Sophie's Choice (1979)

“Let your love flow out on all living things. These words at some level have the quality of a strapping homily. Nonetheless, they are remarkably beautiful, strung together in their honest lump-like English syllables… Let your love flow out on all living things.
But there are a couple of problems with this precept of mine. The first is, of course, that it is not mine. It springs from the universe and is the property of God, and the words have been intercepted — on the wing, so to speak — by such mediators as Lao-tzu, Jesus, Gautama Buddha and thousands upon thousands of lesser prophets, including your narrator, who heard the terrible truth of their drumming somewhere between Baltimore and Wilmington and set them down with the fury of a madman sculpting in stone.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Source: Sophie's Choice (1979), Ch. 16; the italicized words being quotes of the song "Let Your Love Flow" by Larry E. Williams, as sung by The Bellamy Brothers

“Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Source: Sophie's Choice (1979), Ch. 16

“Her thought process dwindled, ceased. Then she felt her legs crumple. "I can't choose! I can't choose!"”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Source: Sophie's Choice (1979), Ch. 15

“’Neath cold sand I dreamed of death / but woke at dawn to see / in glory, the bright, the morning star.
This was not judgement day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Last lines
Sophie's Choice (1979)

“’Neath cold sand I dreamed of death / but woke at dawn to see / in glory, the bright, the morning star.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Sophie's Choice (1979)