The Birds Fall Down Quotes

“It isn't only living people who die, it is great stretches of living, which can die even when the people who lived there still exist.”
― Rebecca West, Birds Fall Down

“Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep. ”
― Rebecca West, The Birds Fall Down

“Nikolai growled, "The French lost Strasbourg, they lost Alsace, they lost Lorraine, which they pretended was sacred to them because of their saint, though they are deeply infidel. A republican people deserves to lose all, must lose all."
"But," objected Laura, "when France lost Strasbourg and Alsace-Lorraine, France wasn't a republican, it was ruled by the Emperor."
"No matter," said Nikolai, "the French were a people who once had it in them to make France a republican country, and had it in them to make it one again.”
― Rebecca West, The Birds Fall Down