When We Flew Away Quotes

“What happened once can happen again. Evil does walk through the world and is often undetected until it is too late.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“We are doing something.” Anne looked at her mother, confused, but her mother looked sure of herself. “We’re refusing to believe the story they’re telling about us.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“Hatred arises so quickly that one drop is all it takes before it spreads like ink on a page.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“Holocaust, from the Greek, holokauston, an offering consumed by fire.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“We’re going into the countryside and leaving everything behind. I would hate to have this book destroyed. The Germans will burn whatever they find.” She took an old volume from a pile of books that had been stacked against a brick wall. “Would you burn birds in a cage?” she asked Anne. “Of course not.” Anne thought of the magpie. She thought of the soldiers shooting at whatever they saw, just for fun. “And yet they burn books. They throw them into metal trash cans and light a fire and then all the words that had been written fly away.” “What happens to the words then?” Anne asked. “They’re remembered by everyone who ever read them.” Madame Clara’s bright eyes were trained on Anne. It was dark in the alley and Anne had the urge to run, but she stayed where she was. “I used to have everything,” the bookseller’s wife said. “Now I just have what I can remember.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“That was the thing about being someone’s sister. You could hate her and love her at the very same time. You could tell her things you wouldn’t tell anyone else or tell her nothing at all. You could have a fight and say horrible things, and then forget all about it. You could outrun her when she least expected you to do so, just take off and know she would follow.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“They’ve been taught to hate, and unfortunately, we’re the object of that hate,” Pim told her. “It’s not personal.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“cannot know when evil will appear. That was the inside of the story, waiting to open like a dark flower. She could only see its shadow from the corner of her eye, a large black moth. She spied it only for an instant, but it was long enough for Anne to tug on her sister’s hand and say Hurry, and then they ran so fast it was almost as if they were flying. The family lived at number 37 Merwedeplein, and the sisters often raced up the stoop two steps at a time to see who could get to the door first and run inside. But this time they paused at the threshold. They could hear raised voices inside. Their apartment had a sign that asked visitors to ring three times (3 X BELLEN), but the girls often barked three times instead, reading the word bellen for its German meaning, bark. Now, however, Margot gripped Anne’s arm to keep her from entering. “Let’s give them a minute,” Margot whispered. Their parents had had more to disagree about since coming to the Netherlands, and Margot’s eyes shone with empathy. She wanted to believe all would be well. “Husbands and wives argue. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong,” Margot told Anne when she saw the worried look on her sister’s face. This time their parents were quarreling about Anne, whose teachers had complained about her. Starry-eyed. Dreamer. Doesn’t pay attention. Talks when she should be quiet. Talks all the time. Anne had been chattering to her friends when she should have been paying attention to her lessons. Even though her teacher didn’t appreciate”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“The star that had been sewn onto her coat burned through her as if the fabric had been spun from pure hatred. Every stitch pierced through her as if it were a thorn.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“Hatred was contagious, it spread from one household to the next, a slow infection of the spirit and the soul.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“You are different, you are an outsider, you cannot have what we have, not the simplest thing, you are a mouse, a fly, a speck of dust. You are not like the other people walking down the street, you are a shadow, you are no longer human. They have the power and you have none, and because of this they can treat you as if you were nothing more than a moth they had caught in a jar, a jar they shake whenever it pleases them, a jar they can empty onto the fire, a jar they keep you in until you are in flames.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“We could not sleep through the night after the bombs had fallen. Our family had scattered all over the world, but we did not fit into the quota of Jews allowed into America or England or Switzerland. We still thought it was impossible for the race laws in Germany to be put into effect here. We believed in what was fair. We didn’t understand that hatred changes everything and, in the morning, when we woke, we found we were afraid of the world outside. It was far too quiet. It no longer belonged to us. It was a place where anything could happen. There were no longer ordinary days. We stepped outside into a different world.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary

“They were outsiders here in Amsterdam, and when some people are less than others, and only a select few have rights, anyone who doesn’t belong can never be safe.”
― Alice Hoffman, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary