Ami

“The historical record often neglects certain kinds of stories. For example, in the Library of Congress, OSS veterans helped catalogue the OSS records; this was a good service to the country, but they often catalogued the names of men and not the names of women. In memoirs that men wrote about the war years, the names of women are, likewise, often absent – they’re “a shapely analyst.” Say or “a woman from Harvard.” I’m grateful to have a way to fill in the stories of figures who, despite their importance, don’t receive their due space in the archives.”
― Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

“The OSS and the SOE learned early on that lone saboteurs can take down their targets more effectively than fleets of bomber planes; that small groups of people on foot can go where squadrons of tanks can't; that ordinary people with local knowledge can foil the plans of occupying generals-that, in short, the monumental power Hitler's regime worshipped could be outmaneuvered by precisely the weakness he despised in others.”
― Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

“And second, in the fight against the Nazis, refugees like Cohen and the Clarks ultimately helped turn the tide of the war. Nazi Europe based its whole identity on forming an in-group that violently excluded these people. America, when it honored its best values, welcomed them. It's the American way: welcoming strangers, seizing the practical gains of diversity, finding common cause between aristocrats and thieves.”
― Elyse Graham, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

“So we’re like Spotify, but for evil.” “We’re much less evil than Spotify. We actually pay a living wage to the people whose work we’re selling.”
― John Scalzi, Starter Villain