What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank Quotes

“How terribly unfair that his whole self aches because of the shape of a shoulder, the soft line of a hip.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“43. My couch is 92 inches; it’s a deep green three-cushion. It seats hundreds. But that’s not why I got it. I got it because, lying down the long way, in the spooning-in-front-of-a-movie way, in the head-to-toe lying with a pair of lamps burning and a pair of people reading, it fits me and another – it fits her – really well.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“It is hard to know what a person would and wouldn't do in any specific instance. And you, spoiled child, apply the rules of civilization to a boy who had only seen its opposite. Maybe the fault for those deaths lies in a system designed for the killing of Tendlers that failed to do its job. An error, a slip that allowed a Tendler, no longer fit, back loose in the world.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“They went off to the Holy Land and went from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox, which to me sounds like a repackaged detergent–ORTHODOX ULTRA®, now with more deep-healing power.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“When my mother told my father what had happened, he didn't want to believe it. "Nobody ever wants to believe what happens to the Jews," she said, "not even us.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“No, no," Arnie says. "Fondle--fondle is to touch. Everything sounds Yiddish to you. Far-fetched, far-flung..." "Farflung is Yiddish." "No," Arnie says, "it's not.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“Elke zomer worden de oude mensen kleiner terwijl de kinderen groter worden. Volgens Josh is er maar een bepaalde lengte beschikbaar op aarde en verwisselen de centimeters alleen van eigenaar.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“What I’m trying to say, whether you want to take it seriously or not, is that you can’t build Judaism only on the foundation of one terrible crime. It is about this obsession with the Holocaust as a necessary sign of identity. As your only educational tool. Because for the children, there is no connection otherwise. Nothing Jewish that binds.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

“Author reads for Seattle; it has always been his city. He reads for the buyer, who has always believed. Author reads one more time to his old man. He smiles at his reader, and reads on through the tears. Author reads on. And Author reads on.”
― Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories