The Librarian Spy Quotes

“Perhaps that is the draw of books.” James put his hand over hers. “To show us the way even when we think the path is too dark to see.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Sometimes the things we hold inside of us need to be let out. No matter where you are or who you’re speaking with.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“I think we all hope to be so valiant and pray we never have to find out.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted,” he said, quoting Aesop.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“You must look beyond the page. ... To the men and women who worked so seamlessly together. Not only the author who wrote it, but the typographer who meticulously assembled it, to the person manning the complexities of the printing machines, to the courier who delivered it, and the citizen who smuggled it from French soil to end up here in Portugal.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“I mean that this present we live in is tomorrow’s history. You ask if this is important. This is the education for our future, to learn from the mistakes that have been made now and never let atrocities such as this continue or be repeated.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Understanding and knowledge were wasted if one did not apply them to life.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Their eyes were bigger than their brains.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Aristotle once said that patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“We have not to fear anything, except fear itself. Julius Caesar’s quote resounded in”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“After all, there was nothing Ava loved more than the scent of old books—except, of course, the power of the written word.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“I don't think I take compliments very well, Ava admitted sheepishly.

"Most women don't. We always think we're not good enough." She lifted her shoulder, and the resignation behind it told Ava that even gorgeous, confident, say-whatever-came-to-mind Peggy was also plagued by the same monsters as Ava. "Do me a favor," Peggy said. "when someone tells you that you look beautiful tonight—and they will—don't you dare bring my name up or offer any self-deprecating remarks. You look them dead in the eye and all you say is 'thank you.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Words had power.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“mean that this present we live in is tomorrow’s history. You ask if this is important. This is the education for our future, to learn from the mistakes that have been made now and never let atrocities such as this continue or be repeated.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Now I am nothing.” “You aren’t,” Ava said vehemently. “Not when you are here to tell your story. Not when there are those like Ethan who work miracles with limited resources to get you onto safe shores. Not when people like me are photographing your books, your correspondence, your papers, and your lives to share your heritage, to ensure Hitler can never make any of you into nothing. He will not succeed in destroying you.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“only difference between her and those queued was that she had been born an American. The visa in her desk had been a right of her birth and to the refugees in Europe, it was such a glowing privilege.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Part of Elaine felt she was not worthy of this story, and yet another part of her wondered if the telling might be something of a balm to Manon’s soul.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“While doing research, I happened to stumble upon a woman in France named Lucienne Guezennec. Plucky, brave and a woman of integrity and honor, she was a true inspiration. She gave her identity card to a Jewish woman to save her, joined the Resistance and became an apprentice at a clandestine newspaper, was the only survivor of a Nazi attack on the press, and even stood up for the women whose heads were being shaved in retaliation for collaborating with Nazis at the end of the war. I do not mirror her life, though I used her as a strong influence for Elaine’s character.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“One man I unfortunately did not get to mention in my book, but I feel also deserves to be noted here, is Sousa Mendes, a Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. In June 1940, when Germany took France, people were being attacked and cities were falling under Nazi control, and people were desperate to flee, he defied strict orders to not authorize visas. As the Portuguese consulate filled with desperate people, Mendes went with his heart and conscience and vowed to sign as many visas as he could regardless of nationality or religion, and he did so without taking payment. For three days, he signed and signed and signed, his name reduced to only “Mendes,” but the consulate stamp on those visas was enough to let refugees flow through the borders. Before he was forced to stop, he managed to sign at least 3,800—this number has been confirmed with certainty by the Sousa Mendes Foundation (survivors and descendants of the families he saved with those visas), though estimates of the number range between 10,000–30,000. For his defiance, he was stripped permanently of his title, shunned by António de Oliveira Salazar, the prime minister of Portugal, and never again able to secure employment. Sousa Mendes is noted to have said: “I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“the jumbled letters of the Criss Cross Words board game laid out before them. Ava shuffled the letters in front of her, navigating the Q, U, and X around a C until the answer came to her. In a flash, she transferred the tiles onto the board. “‘Quixotic,’” Daniel read. “Are you serious? Is that a word?” She put her hands on her hips where she sat. “Of course it is.” It took her a moment to dredge up its meaning from her memory. “It’s something unrealistic or impractical.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy

“Sempre apreciara peixe fresco e marisco e esperava agora poder comê-los em Lisboa, trazidos diretamente das águas cintilantes do rio Tejo para um grelhador.”
― Madeline Martin, Uma Espia Americana em Lisboa

“Tolstoy once said the two most powerful warriors were patience and time.”
― Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy