All the Broken Places Quotes

“I suppose you wish you’d won the war.” I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, Mr. Darcy-Witt,” I said, as if I were explaining something obvious to a child. “No one wins a war.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“I felt as if I might laugh out loud. It was an extraordinary way to refer to six years of war, countless millions of deaths, and all the broken places that had been left behind.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams. Guilt intruded upon any happy moment, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure. Guilt followed you down streets, interrupting the most mundane moments with remembrances of days and hours when you could have done something to prevent tragedy but chose to do nothing. When you chose to play with your dolls instead. Or stick pins in maps of Europe, following the armies’ progression. Or flirt with a handsome young lieutenant. That was guilt.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“They used to burn books, you know,”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“And they would surely find some way of suggesting that you were as guilty as any of us. No matter how young you were.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“It was … difficult at first,’ he said. ‘I am a person. But I seemed to forget in time …’ ‘Forget what?’ ‘That they were people too.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“I’m not sure any cause is worth giving your life for,”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“You can hurt me if you like," I whispered, closing my eyes, thinking that he might slap me hard, drive his fist into my stomach, break my nose.
"Why would you want that?" he asked, his tone betraying an innocence that believed his beauty.
"So I'll know that I'm alive.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“I was supposed to be doing my homework,” he said. “But instead, he caught me reading and he was furious.” “They used to burn books, you know,” I replied quietly. “Who did?” “It doesn’t matter.” “Who did?” he repeated. “Why would anyone burn a book?” “Bad people,” I told him. “All long since dead. Well, most of them anyway. They were afraid of them, you see. Frightened of ideas. Frightened of the truth. People still are, I find. Things don’t change that much.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“It’s no longer a fiction, Gretel. Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“I’ve seen all those movies, of course. Schindler’s List, The Pianist, Sophie’s Choice. And I’ve watched a few documentaries and read a few books. But you don’t really get a sense of it until you’re actually there, do you? Have you ever been, Mrs F.?’ I said nothing.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“War.” “Is that a game?” “It’s the best game in the world.” “And are you winning?” “I won’t know till it’s over.” “And perhaps not even then.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“Really, it seemed that the safest thing was not to speak. In which case, perhaps the world had not changed very much at all.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“last bottle of Guerlain Shalimar had been given to her by Grandmother”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“is a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief, a book that sets out to examine how culpable a young person might be, given the historical events unfolding around her, and whether such a person can ever cleanse themselves of the crimes committed by the people she loved.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“it is a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief, a book that sets out to examine how culpable a young person might be, given the historical events unfolding around her, and whether such a person can ever cleanse themselves of the crimes committed by the people she loved.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“If grudges were an Olympic sport, there’d be a lot of people competing for gold.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“Rémy Toussaint”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“pins in maps of Europe, following the armies’ progression. Or flirt with a handsome young lieutenant.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“When I give talks to creative-writing workshops, I always ask this of my students: without referring to the plot, tell me, in a few sentences, what your novel is about. If I were to answer this question about All the Broken Places, I would say that it is a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief, a book that sets out to examine how culpable a young person might be, given the historical events unfolding around her, and whether such a person can ever cleanse themselves of the crimes committed by the people she loved.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“own.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“They were afraid of them, you see. Frightened of ideas. Frightened of the truth. People still are,”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“That was guilt.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“If Dr. Allenby thought she had any concept of what guilt was, then she was fooling herself. Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams. Guilt intruded upon any happy moment, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure. Guilt followed you down streets, interrupting the most mundane moments with remembrances of days and hours when you could have done something to prevent tragedy but chose to do nothing.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“What are you playing?” I asked him. “War.” “Is that a game?” “It’s the best game in the world.” “And are you winning?” “I won’t know till it’s over.” “And perhaps not even then.”
― John Boyne, All the Broken Places

“It starts in the schoolyard, with small boys fighting among each other. In the 1930s, the Reich found a people to hate. Now, twenty years later, it’s us who are hunted down. When they discover one of us, they bring us to a courtroom so the world can hear of our crimes but, really, all they want is to shoot us, hang us, kill us in any way they can. We’re all just trying to survive.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places

“You were cruel.’ ‘I was obedient.”
― John Boyne, All The Broken Places