John Boyne Quotes

...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.

~ John Boyne

He didn't want to play football. He wanted to be told the truth.

~ John Boyne

Don't make it worse by thinking it's more painful than it actually is.

~ John Boyne

What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

~ John Boyne

He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.

~ John Boyne

And I am not one of these long-living fictional characters who prays for death as a release from the captivity of eternal life, not for me the endless whining and wailing of the undead.

~ John Boyne

Neither your mother nor I have any imagination at all and we certainly didn't bring you up to have one

~ John Boyne

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - too sad story. This book is very good and sad

~ John Boyne

He pushed his two feet together and shot his right arm in the air before clicking his two heels together and saying in a deep and clear voice as possible the words he said every time he left a soldiers presence. 'Heil Hitler,' he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, 'Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon'.

~ John Boyne

But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told him no. No, I had not. But I had been wrong. And Tom Cardle has been right. For I had known everything, right from the start, and never acted on any of it. I had blocked it from my mind time and again, refused to recognize what was staring me in the face. I had said nothing when I should have spoken out, convincing myself that I was a man of higher character. I had been complicit in all their crimes, and people had suffered because of me. I had wasted my life. I had wasted every moment of my life. And the final irony was that it had taken a convicted pedophile to show me that in my silence, I was just as guilty as the rest of them.

~ John Boyne

I would have dearly liked to close the French doors between us for a bit of peace, but Mam wouldn't allow it; she said that solitude would give me ideas and the last thing a boy of my age needed was ideas.

~ John Boyne

Don't you ever think,' he asked cautiously, 'that it would be better to be a bully than to be bullied? At least that way no one could ever hurt you.' Katarina turned to him in amazement. 'No,' she said definitively, shaking her head. 'No Pieter, I never think that, not for a moment.

~ John Boyne

There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you?It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.

~ John Boyne

You are not there, Father,” I cried. “I wake up at Gaudlin Hall, I spend most of my day there, I sleep there at night. And throughout it all there is but one thought running through my mind.”“And that is?”“This house is haunted.

~ John Boyne

No woman will ever take care of my children but me, she said. I will not allow it, do you understand?And after I am gone Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it.

~ John Boyne

Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?’ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.

~ John Boyne

We don't have the luxury of thinking ... Some people make all the decisions for us

~ John Boyne

Throughout my teenage years, I read 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens every December. It was a story that never failed to excite me, for as well as being a Dickens enthusiast, I have always loved ghost stories.

~ John Boyne