Quotes from Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Fred looked at me grimly. "It's not right," he said. "It is," I Said. "What's right and what's permitted are sometimes different things.

But at the same time, I felt different. There was a Before Dunkirk version of me and an After Dunkirk version. The After Dunkirk version was stronger, less afraid.

shook my head. Bombs fell from the sky. Boys fell from trees. Anything might happen. Anytime.

The Swiss Family Robinson.

Miss Smith gave him a look that made him shut his mouth, except he begged her pardon first.

It was hard enough to cope with Susan. How would I ever cope without her?

How could a real person kill an imaginary animal?

It was nearly time for Ruth's examinations.

The second day was worse. The second day my good foot and leg hurt too.

You certainly were a lady," Mother said firmly. "You handled yourself well in a crisis, just as every lady should. You're a farmer's daughter; you'll never have fancy dresses or an elegant life. That's not what makes a lady. A lady is how you behave.

We emerged onto the ruined street, where gaps showed in the rows of buildings like missing teeth

This well-researched and moving novel provides insight into their lives as it raises important and difficult questions.

If I could do it over, I would have at least learned their names.

Probably hurts him to walk at all, and he couldn't really go faster, not without tripping himself. He's showing sense. This ought to make a big difference." I felt stung. I'd been hurting him, and I didn't know.

I wanted Mam to be like Susan. I didn't really trust Susan not to be like Mam.

I had so much. I felt so sad.

We'd escaped. Mam, Hitlers bombs, my one-room prison. Everything. Crazy or not, I was free.

Ada, please," she said, looking up, "I am not on exhibit in a zoo.

I stared at Papa, hearing his words over in my mind: what if I were a spy. I didn't think for one moment that Papa was actually a spy, but the phrase awakened a sense of possibility in me.

You can know things all you like, but it doesn't mean that you believe them.

I don't know what to say,' she said after a pause. 'I don't want to tell you a lie, and I don't know the truth.' It was maybe the most honest thing anyone had ever said to me.

The Nazis are trying to control what we can read." Madame Marcelle shook her head. "It's much worse than that," she said. "Controlling the newspaper makes sense in an occupied land. Novels and works of literature are art in the same way that songs are art. It's wrong to burn them. It's wrong to ban them.

Pneumonia. I'd heard that word before. Over two years ago, when I'd first come to Susan's house, when I'd learned about Becky, her best friend. "What killed her?" I'd asked, and Susan had said, "Pneumonia. That's a sickness in the lungs." I was falling, falling. I had no one to catch me. Susan was dying. I had no safe place to be.

I leaned my head against her, the tiniest bit. She didn't move. I leaned a little bit more. She put her arm around my shoulders, so that I was nestled against her. As I drifted into sleep I thought I felt her lips brush the top of my head.