They Went Left Quotes

“Choose to love.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness".”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“None of these are the miracles I was looking for. But they’re miracles nonetheless”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“And now we're supposed to live with people who either wished for our deaths or looked the other way while it happened.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“What's the minimum expectation I have for human decency in a war that was entirely inhumane?”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“Can I understand? Was leaving enough? Was deserting enough? What would I consider enough? Would I have asked him to shoot his superior officers before he deserted? Go into hiding rather than enlist at all? Try to spy for the Allies? What's the minimum expectation I have for human decency in a war the was entirely inhumane?”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“I choose to love the parson in front of me”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“I am asking: If my options were never being able to find my brother, or knowing for sure that something terrible had happened to him, which would I choose? What’s the line between the amount of information that brings hope and the amount that brings despair?”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“I don't want you to work. You're too young. I want you to still have a normal childhood. School was important to Papa and Mama; you remember."
He rolls his eyes. "I'm not a child." There's a testiness in his voice, like I heard when I wouldn't let him have the wine at the wedding.
"Well, I want you to still have a normal life," I amend my statement. "Normal twelve-year-olds go to school."
"Normal twelve-year-olds don't survive Birkenau by jumping into latrines to hide from the commandant every time there was a selection. It's too late for me to be a normal twelve-year-old.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“Busyness can be a relieving antidote to a lot of things: grief, awkwardness, confusion.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“The war didn't end people's prejudice.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“I don't know which is more unfathomable to me: the base evil and cruelty of the Holocaust, or the undying hope that survivors managed to take out of it. I don't know which is more unfathomable, but I do know which we should inspire to.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“Our minds are nothing. That's the biggest nothing, the reason we are still in the hospital. Our minds are soft. Confused.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“everyone traveling in a different direction, and every direction was someone’s home, as if the world were a board game and all the pieces had ended up scattered in the wrong corners of the box.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“Our minds are nothing. That's the biggest nothing, the reason we are still in the hospital. Our minds are soft. Confused.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“What am I falling back into? My body feels, all at once, the way it did in the hospital months ago. My heart is heavy with nothing. My brain is aching with nothing. I have nothing, I weigh nothing, I am nothing except for the weight and grief I've been carrying around for what feels like forever.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“So maybe until you decide,' he says, 'you can keep leaving little pieces of leftover thread in my room that I can keep finding excuses to return to you.'
I retrieve the thread from the grass where it landed after I tossed it at him. 'Do you want to just take this with you so you can give it back to me tomorrow?'
'I do.' Solemnly, he takes the thread. 'Can I kiss you now?" Josef asks.
'You can.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“With my sister - there's a difference between loving a person and loving a memory of them. Or loving who someone is and who you want them to be.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“Something happened, something that you're not ready to talk about," he says. Mutely, I nod. "I'll stop talking. I'll stay here with you until you want me to leave, but I'll just remain silent."
He wedges his chin over my head, firmly and deliberately. I feel as though he's burrowing in for a storm with me, readying us both against the wind. I try to steady myself against the beat of Josef's heart. I try to match my breaths to his. I try to feel grounded by this, the comforting pressure and weight.
I try to feel grounded, but the feeling of Josef's arms right now is competing against six years of misery wring around my head with nothing to drown them out since Josef has promised to remain silent.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left