Quotes from Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.

I wanted to stay locked away from the pain and destruction. I didn't want to be strong. I didn't want to be the 'smart girl'. I was so very tired. I just wanted it all to be over.

I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.

Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.

What did I want? I wanted the war to be over so I could ask her out.

The soldier stared at Ingrid. His silence was elastic, slowly curling a rope around her neck.

War had bled color from everything, leaving nothing but a storm of gray.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.

Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,

Revolting. If women were so careless to become pregnant at such a time, let women sort it out.

Death, it seems, has a mind of its own.

Killers aren't always assassins. Sometimes, they don't even have blood on their hands.

But unlike Mama, I would not go to heaven. My secrets padlocked the gates. I'd be a torn kite stuck in the dead branches of a tree, unable to fly.

It's safer for you to stay with the others, ' he said.Safer? He didn't realize.I was already dead.

My arm began moving, turning the invisible crank of Death's music box. Somewhere inside, I didn't want the melody to end.

I didn't need his criticism. I carried enough guilt on my own. I had done everything wrong. I had the highest marks in school but couldn't master common sense.