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

John Boyne Quotes

Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.

— John Boyne

You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you’re pretending to be.

— John Boyne

Standing there in your uniform,’ she continued, ’as if it makes you something special. Not even caring what it means really. What it stands for.

— John Boyne

I blame Steve Jobs. And that Zuckerberg fellow. All those clever little psychopaths who couldn’t get laid in high school but make up for their sexual inadequacy by inventing technology that destroys humanity. They’re the Oppenheimers of the twenty-first century.

— John Boyne

You were a terrible monster of a man and wherever you are you should feel shame for the way you lived your life.

— John Boyne

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

That was guilt.

— John Boyne

True horror is all the more potent for being implicit.

— John Boyne

Ah those people”, said Father, nodding his head smiling slightly. “Those people... well, they are not people at all, Bruno”.

— John Boyne

Accept the situation in which you find yourself and everything will be so much easier.

— John Boyne

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

Remember, my young friend, life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practise.’ He winked at me. ‘Forster.

— John Boyne

I’ve known violence, I’ve known bigotry. I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive.

— John Boyne

The powers that be, the Great Unelected Consciences of the World, didn’t approve of what she said and that was the end of her.

— John Boyne

I understand that some people prefer the third person plural for a pronoun,’ he replied, having recently interviewed a pop singer on his show who’d insisted upon this, leading one of the cameramen to be fired for calling them Sibyl, after the Sally Field movie about the woman with multiple personalities.

— John Boyne

Those pints won’t drink themselves.

— John Boyne

I’m educating strangers on how they can live better lives. And making sure that those with the wrong opinions are held to account.

— John Boyne

By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.

— John Boyne

People that are, you know, constantly alert to every injustice in society, every perceived slight, and who are just desperate to let you know when they’ve found one. They seek them out with all the urgency of truffling pigs.

— John Boyne

It’s no longer a fiction, Gretel. Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.

— John Boyne
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