Spymistress Quotes

“In the November 1940 week of nightmares, when mighty German planes bombed London, British bombers retaliated by attacking Berlin, where the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, was pressing Hitler for an answer to just exactly when German forces would invade the British Isles.

We had heard of the conference beforehand,' Churchill told Parliament, ' and, although not invited to join in the discussion, did not wish to be entirely left out of the proceedings.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Civilians display true courage by getting on with their daily lives between nights of terror bombing. They do it from a sense of duty. Duty is the mother of courage. Real courage is in facing impossible odds. Vera Atkins, Spymistress”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“It's easy to look brave when things go your way - Ver Atkins, Spymistress”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“François, duc de La Rochefoucauld, ‘Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“They cannot know What makes you as you are Nor can they hear Those voices from afar Which whisper to you You are not alone… They cannot reach That inner core of you The long before of you The child inside Deep deep inside Which gives the man his pride… What you are They can never be And what they are Will soon be history.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Tommy’ was used 128 years ago in a War Office guide for a soldier to apply for ‘marching money’ at two and a half pence per mile to cover himself, wife, and child. The Duke of Wellington in 1794 found a Grenadier with a bayonet thrust in the chest, a sabre cut across the head and a bullet in his lungs who gasped, ‘It's all in a day's work, sir.’ His name was Thomas Vera.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart: the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril.”1”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“IG Farben's dividends double in the first year that its subsidiary sent Zyklon-B to gas death-camp”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Gubby had proved primitive methods could undermine the most advanced technology,”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“On December 2, 1939, Vera learned that mobile gas chambers were used to murder patients in Poland's mental hospitals.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“The Polish code breakers had no way out except with the mission. Vera had three: Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki, and Henryk Zygalski. Jerzy was with his wife, who had been advised along the way to strangle their baby because of German atrocities. She chose to care for the infant and urged Jerzy to go. He would never see his wife or child again.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“France was eclipsed by the solid German block, producing far more than twice her number of military males each year, towering up grim and grisly. It was the vengeful women of France who would have to fill gaps in any resistance armies. Paris”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Hitler used tactics that worked in Germany: firing up fears of communists. He said in one speech that pro-German Englishmen saw Bolshevism as the true enemy. His account was surprisingly detailed. He said terrorists had always been associated in London with Bolshevik anarchists.”
― William Stevenson, Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II