Quotes from Elizabeth Wein

Hope is treacherous, but how can you live without it?

I don't believe for a minute-that we wouldn't have become friends somehow-that an unexploded bomb wouldn't have gone off and blown us both into the same crater, or that God himself wouldn't have come along and knocked our heads together in a flash of green sunlight. But it wouldn't have been likely .

A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.

Oh Julie, wouldn't I know if you were dead? Wouldn't I feel it happening, like a jolt of electricity to my heart?

Kiss me, Hardy!' Weren't those Nelson's last words at the Battle of Trafalgar? Don't cry. We're still alive and we make a sensational team.

It is so hard trying to say what you mean.

It's an illusion I've noticed before-- words on a page are like oxygen to a petrol engine, firing up ghosts. It only lasts while the words are in your head. After you put down the paper or pen, the pistons fall lifeless again.

Fight with realistic hope, not to destroy all the world's wrong, but to renew its good.

One moment flying in green sunlight, then the sky suddenly grey and dark.

God knows what I thought! Your brain does amazing acrobatics when it doesn't want to believe something.

Look at me!' I screeched. 'Look at me, Amadeus von Linden, you sadistic hypocrite, and watch this time! You're not questioning me now, this isn't your work, I'm not an enemy agent spewing wireless code! I'm just a minging Scots slag screaming insults at your daughter! So enjoy yourself and watch! Think of Isolde! Think of Isolde and watch!

There is only one reason I did not go down in flames over the Angers, and that is because I knew I had Julie in the back. Would never have had the presence of mind to put that fire out if I hadn't been trying to save her life.

The anticipation of what they will do to you is every bit as sickening in a dream as when it is really going to happen.

But I've never despised myself so much as I did that day - she was so small and - so fierce, so beautiful , it was like breaking a hawk's wings, stopping up a clear spring with bricks - digging up roses to make space to park your tank. Pointless and ugly.

She whispered, 'C'etait la Verite?' Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? 'Yes,' I whispered back. 'Oui. C'etait la verite.

If I am very lucky - I mean if I am clever about it - I will get myself shot. Here, soon.

Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing - and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.

There were no route maps posted on the walls, but a Wonderland-style sign commanding, 'If you know where you are, then please tell others.

TELL THE WORLD!

Must stop. This ink is amazing, it really doesn't smear, even when you cry on it

You can't just sit in a corner weeping or you'll die.

I AM A COWARD.

We make a sensational team.

Von Linden really should know me well enough by now to realise that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.