It was a difficult time to be Irish, a difficult time to be twenty-one years of age and a difficult time to be a man who was attracted to other men. To be all three simultaneously required a level of subterfuge and guile that felt contrary to my nature.

— John Boyne

John Boyne Quotes

My twin contradictory places of idleness: the public bar and the chapel. One so social and teeming with life, the other quiet and warning of death.

— John Boyne

We hadden de Furie nooit te eten moeten vragen,′ zei ze. ‘Sommige mensen moeten zo nodig hogerop komen.

— John Boyne

I’m seven,’ said Pierrot, sitting up straight, mortally offended.

— John Boyne

La tonta de remate.

— John Boyne

Heil Hitler,′ zei hij, wat, voor zover hij wist, een andere manier was om te zeggen ‘Tot ziens en een prettige dag verder’.

— John Boyne

It’s not so long ago that men of your ilk believed in witches and superstition,” I pointed out. “Medieval times,” he said, waving a hand in the air to dismiss the notion. “This is 1867. The Church has come a long way since then.

— John Boyne

The novel was written by Anshel Bronstein, the boy who had lived in the flat below him as a child. Of course, he remembered, he had wanted to be a writer. It seemed that his ambition had come true.

— John Boyne

Well, I’m not advocating it,” I said. “I just mean that before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It’s one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.

— John Boyne

You are most welcome,’ replied Hitler. ‘But remember, the boy who wears this uniform must obey our rules and seek nothing more from life than the advancement of our party and our country. That is why we are here, all of us. To make Germany great again.

— John Boyne

He held it out to Maude, who leaned forward, keeping her eyes locked on his as the cigarette began to spark, and then she sat back again, her left hand poised on the mattress behind her. She continued to stare at him before turning her face towards the ceiling and blowing a great cloud of white smoke in the air, as if she was preparing to announce the election of a new Pope.

— John Boyne

The moral of the story’, he repeated, leaning forward and placing his hands flat on the desk in front of him, ‘is that every so often a natural disaster comes along, an act of God, and it blows all the dust away and when it does people can see that whatever’s left underneath ain’t so pretty. You get it?’ Denton.

— John Boyne

You were such a sweet boy when you first came here. Is it really that easy for the innocent to be corrupted?

— John Boyne

I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father’.

— John Boyne

You heard it all. You saw it all. You knew it all. And you also know the things you are responsible for.’ She hesitated, but it needed to be said. ‘The deaths you have on your conscience. But you’re a young man still, you’re only sixteen; you have many years ahead of you to come to terms with your complicity in these matters. Just don’t ever tell yourself that you didn’t know.’ She released him now from her grip. ‘That would be the worst crime of all.

— John Boyne

Bruno: Me parece que no puedo dejarlo. Me parece que no quiero.

— John Boyne

You know, some day, when you’re all older,’ he said, looking around the room, ’you’re going to have troubles of your own and you’ll have friends who are going through tough times. Maybe it’ll even be one of your own children. And when that happens, you’ll look back at the way you’re all behaving now and wonder whether you might not have been able to show a little more kindness.

— John Boyne

Waarom zou vader op zo’n nare plek willen werken met al die buren? Het slaat nergens op.

— John Boyne

The suggestion, however, regarding my age – that I am perhaps not quite fifty years old – would flatter me immensely. For it is many years now since I have been able to say in all honesty that I have only seen half a century. This is simply the age, or at least the visual representation of an age, at which I have been stuck for a large proportion of my 256 years of life. I am an old man.

— John Boyne

But then I didn’t know what I was giving up until it was already gone. No one ever does, do they?

— 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
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