Mapping the Bones Quotes

“I think of death, not as a smokestack, but as an opening door.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“Could it be that humans had an infinite capacity to make themselves at home in the direst of situations? Or did one just adjust expectations downward, so as to be able to get through each day?”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“People were dying around us, of starvation, tuberculosis, cholera, typhus, typhoid, deportation, influenza, heartbreak. Their lungs were filling up because of the cold. They were being shot for walking too quickly, staring too hard, not answering questions fast enough or answering too fast, or just because they wore the yellow star. To die was easy. To live was harder. Papa said to us, “We have chosen the more difficult path, that of life. Now we must walk it.” We walked.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“We’re lucky we don’t have to share. Lots of people have to—you told me so yourself.” “Share?” Gittel had looked appalled. Chaim remembered the face she’d made at the time, adding, “Papa, we have so little, how could we possibly share?” He’d looked at her, shook his head. “Many people have far less, and that you must never forget.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“As Mama once told me, “We called him Boy for the first two months of his life, but when his third-month birthday came around and we saw that sweet smile—especially when you were close to him, reaching out for him—we realized that he had chosen life. So we named him Chaim after your zaide, your grandfather, but also because ‘chaim’ in Hebrew means ‘life.’” I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without my twin.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“She lay curled up on the ground, one scrawny hand held out as if begging, the other clutching a doll as ragged as she. But her mouth was open, her eyes wide, unblinking. There was a bullet hole in her forehead that looked like a third eye. A dark bruise on her upturned cheek. Gittel had such a dress once, he thought. That blue. Even as he walked on, his eyes filled with tears. A line of a poem sledgehammered into his startled mind. Dance on the streets of Heaven, for you shall never dance here again.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“The minute they were in the hall, he whispered to his father, “He’s a pig.” “Not kosher,” Papa added, and they both chuckled.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“One day Ilka told me they were moving to America. Her papa, who was a professor, had found work there. “Is it far away?” I asked. “America?” We hadn’t studied geography yet. “Over the ocean,” she said. I’d never seen the ocean. I thought it was like the pond in the nearby park, only bigger. “I will visit,” I said. “I will write,” she said. The Nazis came. We did neither.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones

“to eat away that hope. “Belief,” Mama often said, “is the first thing to come, and the last thing to go.” “Belief,” Papa always countered, “is for children.”
― Jane Yolen, Mapping the Bones