The Honest Spy Quotes

“For such bourgeois types, maintaining harmony always comes first. They cannot, nor do they wish to, comprehend that life can treat others far differently than it does them.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“When there’s no respect left, Herr Kolbe, when books are being burned and people are hated on command just because of their religion, when decent behavior disappears, then all the rest will be gone soon too.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Who really knew what doubts and conflicts raged within people? The dangerous ones were those who felt no conflicts at all. They were not living beings—they were nothing but ticking clocks.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“There is a price to pay,” he says, “for doing what’s right.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Marlene was always thinking of happiness somehow. It was the framework for her life. I love that so much about her.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“You simply can’t let things get you down,” he says. “Now that would be betrayal—a betrayal of life itself. I don’t care how pathetic that sounds. I mean exactly what I said.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“The very thing that made a human being human—individual thought—was dead and cremated.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“The very thing that made a human being human”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Do what is right and have no fear.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Inhumanity has become a virtue.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Most women are silently braver than men, Fritz’s mother replied, the men always needing to bluster so much.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“1939. 1940. 1941. 1942. Dread, death, destruction, delusions of grandeur, war. Tyranny.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“The ancient Romans said everyone loves treason but no one the traitor.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“You realize that you might be willing to accept any risks and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is.” —Edward Snowden”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Marlene and I drove on. When we reached the Allgäu region, I remember stopping in a meadow at one point. We looked all around us. We could hardly believe it. Not one single bomb crater, no antiaircraft guns, no military columns anywhere. Marlene laughed. She was happy. She got out and skipped across the meadow, waving at a cow. I was so overcome with joy, I thought the cow might wave back any second.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Reading novels is good,” Fritz says. “Reading them makes your life better, even in tough times.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“Why go to war, Papa?” “A hunger for power, fanaticism, megalomania. Endless stupidity. I don’t know what to tell you.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy

“You simply can’t let things get you down,” he says. “Now that would be betrayal—a betrayal of life itself.”
― Andreas Kollender, The Honest Spy