Goodnight, Vienna Quotes

“Some of the people who’ll applaud loudest tonight are the same people who broke your arm in 1938, and would have sent you to be exterminated. Doesn’t that strike you as ironic?

Gretchen’s eyes darkened, and a shadow passed over her face. She touched her right arm for a moment with her fingertips; then the shadow was gone. ‘That’s just how the world turns. It doesn’t matter, you know. You can’t live in the past.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“You have to be more than an interpreter. You have to be a creator as well. Music is a dream, as life is a dream. It is never finished. It is always becoming. It is not your task to play every note with arithmetical precision. It is your task to allow the music to flow through you and become what it wants to become.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“All my life, I’ve felt that I wasn’t a person, just a problem. People don’t really see me. They just see what they think ought to be fixed, and expect me to be grateful when they explain how wrong in the head I am. I’ve been pushed around and shoved into corners and locked in cupboards, and stuck with needles, and analyzed, and tested, and always, always found wanting. The nurses at the clinic used to call me dieKaulquappe, the tadpole, because I wasn’t one thing or another. It humiliated me terribly. I’ve never felt that I was good enough. I’ve always been a freak. It’s so demeaning.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Ah, the great crime, to be different from them – as if it were a sin not to be cruel and evil, as they are.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“The fear and uncertainty are among their most effective weapons. People vanish without trace. Those who love them are left to dread the worst. It ensures compliance.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“I will never forget hearing Gretchen play, that day you walked into the shop. She is a true musician, and we musicians help each other. That goes beyond politics, or nationality, or anything like that. We speak the same language, and it needs very few words.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Being brave doesn’t mean not being frightened. Being brave means carrying on even though you are frightened.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“How can someone murder someone else, and then say prayers over them?”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“You get away with it because nobody says anything,’ Katya went on furiously. ‘It’s all glossed over. People don’t know the truth. But I’ve seen what Nazism really means, and I’ll make sure everyone listens to me!”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“It was an extraordinary performance. Gretchen was pouring all her sorrow, all her fear and anguish, into the music. The horrors of the past weeks, the suffering she hadn’t been able to articulate, were now throbbing in every note. Her eyes were shut tight, her mouth compressed into a white line. She swayed slightly on the stool, a small figure against the great, black expanse of the piano, intense and yet almost unmoving, like the eye of a cyclone that was whirling around the shop.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“You can’t destroy this child,’ she said with quiet urgency. ‘She has difficulties. Life isn’t easy for her. But she finds her way. Let me take her home. Please.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“She’d seen Asperger working assiduously with the boys, his face eager. He had hopes for them. They were worthy of his attention. The girls were not. He seemed unable to see any value in Gretchen, and that was heartbreaking. His impatient dismissal of her as lazy and disobedient was infuriating. To shrug, and say that she was a girl, and so it didn’t matter whether she improved or not, showed an extraordinary mentality for a pediatrician.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Happiness is precious. Let’s seize it while we can, now. Let’s not wait for tomorrow.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Dr Asperger didn’t teach Gretchen to hug her father. He didn’t teach her how to smile. You did that. I don’t know how to express my gratitude to you, Katya. But believe me, my heart is full.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“I’m not like Mama. She wants to pretend that it’s all still the same. And that’s why she’s always so angry. Longing for what you can’t have is the recipe for unhappiness.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Grieving doesn’t have to be weeping and wailing. It’s hard work that has to be done.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Childhood is an enchanted kingdom. Once we leave it, we can never go back. We can never understand it again. No matter how we may yearn to.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“I hope you won’t mind me giving you advice – but don’t dwell on the negative aspects of all this. Think of it as an adventure. Whatever happens, it’s going to be an interesting experience for you. And in my book, interesting experiences are what make life worth living.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Yesterday was always leaving and there was always tomorrow, waiting at the door.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna

“Thor was watching them. ‘Gretchen says what we both think,’ Thor said quietly.”
― Marius Gabriel, Goodnight, Vienna