The Women of Arlington Hall Quotes

“when you change the way you look at something, the thing you look at changes.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“If you change the way you look at something”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Love isn’t a life distraction. Love is the point.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“realized that the most important before-and-after moments in life don’t happen to you; they’re the ones you make happen. I”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“The thing we all need to remember is, the Russians are playing chess while we are playing tic-tac-toe.” He looked around the room, his expression grave. “They are very old hands at the espionage game. It is in their history and their blood. Compared to us and the British? They are masters at this.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“It was the kind of kiss that stopped time.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Somewhere beyond right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there. —Rumi”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“would be about thirty-three years old now, and the Ethel sitting in front of me in the booth looked to be around the exact same age. I was glad I had my coat on, because as soon as Peter said her name, a chill went through me and my arms broke out into goose pimples. I contemplated how many women in their thirties named Ethel lived in New York City. Hundreds? Thousands? This was a restaurant owned by a friend, a safe place to talk, meaning safe for anyone with ties to CPUSA. Was Julius Rosenberg the leader of the atomic spy ring, code-named Liberal? Was this the mysterious Ethel who “did not work”?”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Hello, Catherine, I’m Julius,” the man said, giving me a brief handshake. “And this is my wife, Ethel.” Liberal speaks of his wife Ethel, aged twenty-nine, married five years . . . The words from the KGB telegram from November 1944 flashed through my mind as I greeted them. Liberal’s wife, Ethel,”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“to have a monopoly on atomic power? It is far too dangerous.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Of course you haven’t. Few people in America have,” he said, grim-faced. “It was located fifty miles from the site of the Trinity test bomb. The camp was given no warning before the bomb exploded. The girls were all jolted out of bed in confusion and woke up to witness a massive mushroom cloud in the distance. They started playing in the radioactive fallout, mistaking it as ‘warm snow’ falling from the sky. They covered themselves in it, some of them even opened their mouths so it dropped on their tongues. The effects of that radioactive fallout? None of those girls will live to see their fortieth birthday. That is a guarantee.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“boxwood topiaries”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“I realized that the most important before-and-after moments in life don’t happen to you; they’re the ones you make happen.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“The choices a person makes in life are shaped and influenced by a complicated calculus of time and circumstances and chance.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“She is also the host of the Historical Happy Hour podcast, where she interviews fellow historical fiction authors about their latest novels.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“The New Yorker article “Hiroshima” by John Hersey, from August 1946, is an incredible real piece of journalism that is worth reading. The story of the dance camp in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and the girls there playing in “warm snow” that was actual radioactive fallout from the Trinity test bomb is heartbreakingly true.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“It is important to note that, of the three hundred Americans spying for the Soviets during World War II, only a hundred were ever identified.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Catherine Killeen and her friends are all composites based on the many brilliant, fascinating female codebreakers working at Arlington Hall, including women like Angeline Nanni, Gloria Forbes, Mildred Hayes, Carrie Berry, Mary Boake, Josephine Miller Deafenbaugh, Joan Malone Callahan, Helen Bradley, Juanita McCutcheon, Ruby Roland, and Gene Grabeel.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“FBI agent Robert “Bob” Lamphere and the ASA’s genius codebreaker Meredith Gardner were real people, and their partnership is truly one for the history books. What they accomplished in the Venona Project, in breaking into the KGB’s telegrams from the war years and tracking down atomic spies in the US and abroad as a result,”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“Seeing my actual self in the mirror calmed my nerves and gave me a boost of confidence. I had chosen to come to New York to save myself, to save the life I’d created from being sabotaged. I wasn’t going to let anyone do this to me without a fight.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“It’s what they call a black bag operation,”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“But it’s hard not to become obsessed. To want to try to solve the world’s problems, or at least the ones in front of us.”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall

“And then I recognized him—thick, wavy black hair, big, dark eyes, a strong jawline, and his imposing build,”
― Jane Healey, The Women of Arlington Hall