Quotes from John Boyne

I move between the two: I write an adult novel, and then I write a children's book. I quite enjoy that. It's a nice change of pace each time.

People try to glorify war, particularly those who aren't actually fighting in them. People tend to make heroes of those who are fighting in them.

I suppose books are my real passion in life.

Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.

I think i'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.

What makes a classic is difficult to define. It's entirely subjective, of course. And the term is employed far too promiscuously.

There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.

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.

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

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

The thing about exploring is that you have to know whether the thing you've found is worth finding. Some things are just sitting there, minding their own business, waiting to be discovered. Like America. And other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of the cupboard.

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

Maybe there were no villains in my mother's story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.

A line came into my mind, something that Hannah Arendt once said about the poet Auden: that life had manifested the heart's invisible furies on his face.

only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.

Their lost voices Must continue to be heard.

I remember a friend of mine once telling me that we hate what we fear in ourselves

Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone just stopped writing for a couple of years and allowed readers to catch up.

In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.

Heil Hitler ," he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, "Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.