A Night Divided Quotes

“Courage isn't knowing you can do something; it's only being willing to try . . .”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“If I don't stand for freedom, then I must sit in chains.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. — Heinrich Heine, German poet”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“I couldn't see much, but it somehow seemed brighter across the wall, as if the sun gave more of it's light to the west. Maybe the people there were more selfish, I thought. Because we needed that sunlight far more than they did.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Courage isn’t knowing you can do something; it’s only being willing to try …”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights activist, 1963”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“If I cannot speak what I think, then it's a crime just to be me.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“We all smiled, but not that much, and frowned but rarely cried. Nobody could succeed here, but most people around me seemed to be okay with that . It meant they wouldn't fail either.

I didn't want to be like them. And at the same time, I was beginning to forget how to be different, how to be my own self. It was the feeling of being swallowed up, and I hated it.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus, French author D”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Our country is Germany -- one country that should be reunited. We don't belong to Moscow or to the west. We belong to ourselves and I have never betrayed that. This tunnel has taken every ounce of courage we have. We're not cowards.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. — Nelson Mandela, South African activist”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“felt like a disease. Just as my father had infected me, I could now infect others. But with what? Courage to speak out? To act? To think and question and believe what I wanted to believe? Somehow I lived in a world where these were bad things.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“This early morning light had not ended the long, dark night. No. For us, the dark night had only begun.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“...I guess what I'm asking, Gerta, is if that's who you want to be when we're free. Are you willing to sacrifice other people if it means you can get ahead?"
I closed my eyes and let only a single tear escape the corner. "No," I mumbled. "No, of course not.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Fear … was the most powerful weapon possessed by the Stasi. — David Cook, British author”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“I whispered a prayer that God would see him there safely, and then carry his family through the storm that was sure to follow his disappearance. There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous. — Hannah Arendt, German political theorist”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“She wanted us to buy the censored albums instead, but that missed the whole point of rock and roll. Nobody wanted “approved music.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Individuality was a weakness, a sickness of the west. So we all walked in step, eyes ahead, and with conversations at a minimum. We”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“With each brick, my hopes faded until nothing was left. If there had ever been a chance of Dominic and my father returning, then the wall took that too. My schoolteacher taught us a new song that thanked our leaders for building a wall to keep the fascists out. I muted my glares and only mouthed the words when my teacher was looking - I couldn't bear to sing the lies.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“We called it Communist Gray. It was the color of our buildings, our markets, our streets. The color of the wall. Even the skies were gray today. Somehow the GDR must have figured out how to bleach that out too.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus, French author”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“For us the dark night had only begun.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Our family was like a house of cards in a stiff wind. And when it became too much to feel the pain of our collapse, all I could do was become angry.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“A door opened down the hallway and I turned to see who was coming. In that instant, Anna slammed her door shut, and I became a disease again.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“called it Communist Gray. It was the color of our buildings, our markets, our streets. The color of the wall. Even the skies were gray today. Somehow the GDR must have figured out how to bleach that out too.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“lucky.” I didn’t like his joke, not at all. “I’m serious, Fritz. Something bad is going to happen.” “It’s only leftover worries from yesterday.” Fritz stared at me a moment too long, as if trying to convince himself of his own words. “Now let’s get to work.” Things went fine for a few hours. I was in the garden, clearing more weeds, and had already emptied out a lot of the dirt from the basement. But then I saw Fritz at the basement window, hissing at me to come inside, and to hurry. His eyes were so wide, I could see the whites from here. The reason for the pit in my gut. I dropped the spade and hurried for the building, careful not to make it look like anything was unusual, if anyone was watching. But when I ducked inside, Fritz had already returned to the shelter, and I breathlessly raced to follow. “What’s the matter?” I called while descending the ladder. My answer came as soon as I entered the tunnel. Water trickled beneath my feet and sank into the soil, creating a dense mud. The farther I walked, the more water there was. At the back of the tunnel, Fritz had exposed a pipe that was now spurting out pressurized water like a fireman’s hose. The hole in it wasn’t large, but it was enough to cause significant damage and was getting worse. The streams of water tore dirt from the walls and sent it in chunks to the ground. Our tunnel was flooding, and if we didn’t find a way to stop the water, it would collapse entirely. “How”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“How ironic that I had been so critical of East Berlin for feeling darker than the west. Now, that very darkness was my only hope to complete this task.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided

“Nobody could succeed here, but most people around me seemed to be okay with that. It meant they wouldn’t fail either.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, A Night Divided