Code Name Verity Quotes

“...unless you were doing them a favor by killing them. Then, you'd let them down if you didn't, if you couldn't make yourself.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Queenie, herself again, took hold of Maddie’s hand and squeezed it tightly. She walked all the way back across the airfield without letting it go. Maddie closed her eyes and flew again in the ethereal pale green light. She knew she would never let it go.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Godless as I am, I pray she's got away with it. It's like ripples in a pond, isn't it? It doesn't stop in one place.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“It's impossible to stall a Lizzie.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“More than anything else, I think, Maddie went to war on behalf of the Holy Island seals.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Las personas somos complicadas. Hay mucho más en nuestro interior de lo que se percibe a simple vista.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Se parece a enamorarse, saber que acabas de encontrar a tu mejor amiga.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Kiss me, Hardy”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“A woman did that.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“(I really would like to catapult myself back there in time and kick my own teeth in.)”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I am quite Pan-like in my naïve confidence that he will play by the rules and keep his word.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“And this, even more wonderful and mysterious, is also true: when I read it, when I read what Julie's written, she is instantly alive again, whole and undamaged. With her words in my mind while I'm reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She's right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can't be landed, stuck in the climb - alive, alive, ALIVE.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“What’s strange about the whole thing is that although it’s riddled with nonsense, altogether it’s true – Julie’s told our story, mine and hers, our friendship, so truthfully. It is us. And this, even more wonderful and mysterious, is also true: when I read it, when I read what Julie’s written, she is instantly alive again, whole and undamaged. With her words in my mind while I’m reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She’s right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can’t be landed, stuck in the climb – alive, alive, ALIVE.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“...it never occurred to him that now he was looking at his master, at the one person in all the world who held his fate right between her palms-- me, in patched hand-me-downs and untrimmed hair and idiot smile-- and that my hatred for him is pure and black and unforgiving.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“She tried not to think about what it would be like running across the airfield to the radio room an hour from now, under fire. But she did it. Because you do. It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“But a part of me lies buried in lace and roses on a riverbank in France—a part of me is broken off forever. A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“With her words in my mind while I'm reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She's right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Did I call them Laurel and Hardy? I meant sodding Romeo and Juliet. This is flirting, á la Gestapo underlings:

She: Oh, you are so strong and manly, M'sieur Thibaut. These knots you tie are so secure.

He: That is nothing. Look, I pull them so tight you cannot undo them. Try.

She: It is true, I cannot! Oh, pull them tighter!

He: Chérie, your wish is my command.

It is my ankles, not hers, which he is binding so tightly and with such masculine charm.

She: I shall have to call you in tomorrow morning as well, to do this task for me.

He: You must cross the cords, so, and knot them behind -

Me: Squeak! Squeak!

She: Shut up and write, ya wee skrikin' Scots piece o' shite.

Well, no, she did not use those exact words. But you get the idea.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can’t believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant. But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“The soaring mountains rose around her, and the poets’ waters glittered beneath her in the valleys of memory—hosts of golden daffodils, Swallows and Amazons, Peter Rabbit. She”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Where I fail in accuracy, I hope I make up for it in plausibility.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Don’t you think it makes them stronger when you give them someone to despise?”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I of course took the opportunity to interpose wi’ pig-headed Wallace pride, ‘I am not English, you ignorant Jerry bastard, I am a SCOT.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“She was never so petty. She did not dabble with minnows at the surface when there were thirty-pound salmon swimming deeper down.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I have spent a vexing half-hour scrapping with Fräulein Engel over the pen nib, which I swear I did not bend on purpose the first time. It is true that it spared me having to continue for a good long while but it did not move things along for that harpy to straighten it out against my teeth when I could have easily done it myself against the table. It is also true that it was stupid of me to bend it out of shape again, on purpose, the second she handed it back to me. Then she had to show me SEVERAL TIMES how, when she was at school, the nurse would use a pen nib to make a pinprick for a blood test.

I don’t know why I bent the stupid thing again. It is so easy to wind Miss Engel up. She always wins; but only because my ankles are tied to my chair.

Well, and also because at the end of every argument she reminds me of the deal I made with a certain officer of the Gestapo, and I collapse.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“There’s no efficient way to kill yourself with a dressmaker’s pin (I wouldn’t call contracting gangrene an efficient way to kill yourself) – I puzzled over it for a long time, seeing as they’d left the pins there, but it’s just not possible. Useful for picking locks though. I so loved the burglary lessons we got when we were training. Didn’t so much enjoy the bleak aftermath of my unsuccessful attempt to put them to use – very good at picking locks but not so good at getting out of the building. Our prison cells are only hotel bedrooms, but we are guarded like royalty. And also, there are dogs. After that episode with the pins, they had a good go at making sure I wouldn’t be able to walk if I did manage to get out – don’t know where you pick up the skills for disabling a person without actually breaking her legs, Nazi School of Assault and Battery? Like everything else it wasn’t permanent damage, nothing left this week but the bruises, and they check me carefully now for stray bits of metal. I got caught yesterday trying to hide a pen nib in my hair (I didn’t have a plan for it, but you never know).

Oh – often I forget I am not writing this for myself, and then it’s too late to scratch it out. The evil Engel always snatches everything away from me and raises an alarm if she sees me trying to retract anything. Yesterday I tried ripping off the bottom of the page and eating it, but she got to it first. (It was when I realised I had thoughtlessly mentioned the factory at Swinley. It is refreshing sometimes to fight with her. She has the advantage of freedom, but I am a lot more imaginative. Also I am willing to use my teeth which she is squeamish about.)

Where was I? Hauptsturmführer von Linden has taken away everything I wrote yesterday. It is your own fault, you cold and soulless Jerry bastard, if I repeat myself.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“What happened was that when they brought me in this morning, poor Fräulein Engel was sitting at the table with her back to the door, busily numbering my countless recipe cards, and I frightened the living daylights out of her by braying in a deep, stentorian voice of command and discipline, ‘Achtung, Anna Engel! Heil Hitler!’ She catapulted to her feet and threw herself into a salute that must have nearly dislocated her shoulder. I’ve never seen her look so white around the gills. She recovered almost immediately and smacked me so hard she knocked me over. When Thibaut picked me up, she smacked me again just for the sheer hell of it. Wow wow wow is my jaw sore. I suppose they are not planning another phoney interview.

I can never decide if it is worth it. It was a truly hilarious moment, but all I seem to have achieved this time is a totally unexpected collusion between Engel and Thibaut.

Did I call them Laurel and Hardy? I meant sodding Romeo and Juliet. This is flirting, à la Gestapo underlings:

She: Oh, you are so strong and manly, M’sieur Thibaut. Those knots you tie are so secure.

He: That is nothing. Look, I pull them so tight you cannot undo them. Try.

She: It is true, I cannot! Oh, pull them tighter!

He: Chérie, your wish is my command.

It is my ankles, not hers, which he is binding so tightly and with such masculine charm.

She: I shall have to call you in tomorrow morning as well, to do this task for me.

He: You must cross the cords, so, and knot them behind –

Me: Squeak! Squeak!

She: Shut up and write, ya wee skrikin’ Scots piece o’ shite.

Well, no, she did not use those exact words. But you get the idea.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Patriotism is not enough—I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.” She”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity