Quotes from John Boyne

We all are [normal]. Their idea of normal just happens to be different to some other people's idea of normal. But this is the world we live in. Some people simply cannot accept something that is outside of their experience.

The women are always the whores; the priests are always the good men who were led astray.

There's nothing more tedious than a grown man blaming his parents, birth or otherwise, for all the things that have gone wrong in his life.

It occurs to me that even though Zoya and I are both still alive, my life is already over. She will be taken from me soon and there will be no reason for me to continue without her. We are one person, you see. We are GeorgyandZoya.

One single syllable of intimacy and the world is put to rights.

Nine-year-old boys usually turn ten at some point. It's the nineteen-year-olds who have difficulty turning twenty.

Tú eres mi mejor amigo —dijo—. Mi mejor amigo para toda la vida.

It's so unfair, I don't see whij I have to be stuck over here on this side of the fence where there's no one to talk to and no one to play with and you get to have dozens of friends are probably playing for hours every day, I'll have to speak to Father about it.

Can I ask you something? He added after a moment. 'yes,' said Shmuel. Bruno thought about it. He wanted to phrase the question just right. 'why are there so many people on that side of the fence?' He asked. 'And what are you all doing there?

I was deluding myself, for love was one thing but desire was something else entirely.

And soon afterwards this manuscript will appear, my final book... There will be outrage and disgust and people will turn on me at the last, they will hate me, my reputation will for ever be destroyed, my punishment earned, self-inflicted like this gunshot wound, and the world will finally know that I was the greatest feather man of them all.

I had never considered myself to be a dishonest person, hating the idea that I was capable of such mendacity and deceit, but the more I examined the architecture of my life, the more I realized how fraudulent were its foundations. The belief that I would spend the rest of my time on earth lying to people weighed heavily on me and at such times I gave serious consideration to taking my own life.

The dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy

Some things are just sitting there, waiting to be discovered. Other things are probably better off left alone

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.

We're accustomed to the older generation looking down on the younger and telling them that they know nothing of the world. But things are rather out of kilter now, aren't they? It is your generation who understands the inhumanity of man, not ours. It's boys like you who have to live with what you have seen and what you have done. You've become the generation of response. While your elders can only look in your direction and wonder.

He decided to talk to the Hopeless Case

I've known a lot of whores in my life, added Gore, [...]. Both men and women. And in general, I've always found them to be good company, with a highly evolved sense of honor. A whore will never cheat you, they have too much integrity for that. But you, Mr. Swift, you give the profession a bad name.

Of course all this happened a long time ago. And nothing like that could happen again, not in this day and age.

Astonishing how everyone is willing to go abroad to fight for the rights of foreigners while having such little concern for those of their own countrymen at home.

He tells a story, and that's what I like. Does this fella tell a story? He doesn't spend twenty pages describing the colour of the sky?' 'He hasn't so far.' 'Good. Jeffrey Archer never talks about the colour of the sky and I like that in a writer. I'd say Jeffrey Archer has never even looked up at the sky his entire life.' 'Especially now that he's in prison,' I suggested.

Both boys stayed very quiet for a few minutes, neither one wanting to say anything he might regret.

I have always been a lover of the sun, even if, through spending a lifetime in Ireland, I have had little personal connection with it.

What you know about women," replied Maude, "could be written in large font on the back of a postage stamp and there'd still be room for the Lord's Prayer. For all your