Irena Quotes

I was taught by my father that when someone is drowning you don't ask if they can swim, you just jump in and help. ~ Irena Sendler

Irena went to the window to savor the freedom of solitude. ~ Milan Kundera

What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures ... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth
an ordinary life. ~ Irena Klepfisz

There will be beautiful times and tough times, as such is life, but if your heart is in it, then it is worth it all the way. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal. ~ Irena Sendler

To most middle-class feminists, as to most middle-class non-feminists, working-class women remain mysterious creatures to be "reached out to" in some abstract way. No connection. No solidarity. ~ Irena Klepfisz

Irena Sendler never thought of herself as a hero. She only did what she felt she must, and wished she could have done more. ~ Marcia K. Vaughan

Humanity has understood nothing. Religious, tribal, national wars continue. The world continues to be in a sea of blood. ~ Irena Sendler

Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory. ~ Irena Sendler

How can she explain to Gustaf that within the magic circle of maternal energy, Irena has never manage to rule over her own life? How can she explain that the constant proximity of the mother would throw her back, into her weakness, her immaturity? ~ Milan Kundera

The aspirations of most people
security, pleasure, leisure, meaningful work, creative and intellectual pursuits
are to be supported. These desires and dreams are not shameful. In supporting them, we are showing solidarity with working people, for whom these are luxuries and not givens. ~ Irena Klepfisz

God, you're so hot, Irena. When are we going to get together, have ourselves a litter of little kiggens?"

"On the first of never, Andy. And they wouldn't be kiggens. They'd be pities. ~ J.A. Konrath

As a kid, my brother and I would read the same novel, we'd memorize entire pages, reenact the book as it's characters, and would immerse in playing like that for hours. I suppose it was a natural follow up, wanting to still play in a similar fashion, but as an adult. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

My dream was to eventually make movies. To be part of the fairy tales, stories and novels I loved reading so much growing up. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

We all have to ask ourselves, "What would I have done?". I agree with Wladyslaw Bartofszewski, one of the organizers of ZEGOTA, who said, "Only the dead have done enough. ~ Irena Sendler

Jews must learn to say without excuse, without equivocation: despite our history and our powerlessness in the past, despite allthe injustices that we have endured
today, now, the Palestinians are the victims of oppression, and their oppressors are the Israelis. ~ Irena Klepfisz

If you don't ask for what you want, the chances of getting it are zero. ~ Irena Chalmes

I consider every step towards doing what you love an achievement. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn't expect much from her re-unions. ~ Milan Kundera

When words fail music speaks. ~ Irena Huang

To save one Jewish child, ten Poles and two Jews had to risk death. To betray that same child and the family that hid him required only one informer or, worse still, one blackmailer. The risk of being caught by the SS was not prison, but death- death for the entire family. ~ Irena Sendler

It is very easy to slowly lose your self confidence in a business where rejection is a possibility with every trial. It is a business after all and there are so many amazing actors out there that you'll never really see or hear of simply because they don't have someone of influence backing them. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

To cover his tracks and mask his erotic withdrawal, he took pleasure in good-naturedly dirty stories and mildly ambiguous allusions, all delivered loudly and with laughter. The mother was his best ally, ever quick to support him with smutty remarks that she would pronounce in some exaggerated, parodic manner, and in her puerile English. Listening to the two of them, Irena got the sense that eroticism had once and for all turned into childish clowning. ~ Milan Kundera

Iknow the bitter fact that most lives are incredibly wasted, that opportunities for developing identity, for receiving pleasure, for achieving a sense of self-worth are limited and, not only underdeveloped, but in most cases not developed at all
because no one thinks that a housewife, or a mother, or a typist has anything to develop. ~ Irena Klepfisz

Tell me "The Subtle Briar" again,' she asked. She knew I would still know it by heart. I whispered to her in the dark.

'When you cut down the hybrid rose,
its blackened stump below the graft
spreads furtive fingers in the dirt.
It claws at life, weaving a raft
of suckering roots to pierce the earth.
The first thin shoot is fierce and green,
a pliant whip of furious briar
splitting the soil, gulping the light.
You hack it down. It skulks between
the flagstones of the garden path
to nurse a hungry spur in shade
against the porch. With iron spade
you dig and drag it from the gravel
and toss it living on the fire.

'It claws up towards the light again
hidden from view, avoiding battle
beyond the fence. Unnoticed, then,
unloved, unfed, it clings and grows
in the wild hedge. The subtle briar
armors itself with desperate thorns
and stubborn leaves – and struggling higher,
unquenchable, it now adorns
itself with blossom, till the stalk
is crowned with beauty, papery white
fine petals thin as chips of chalk
or shaven bone, drinking the light.

'Izabela, Aniela, Alicia, Eugenia,
Stefania, Rozalia, Pelagia, Irena,
Alfreda, Apolonia, Janina, Leonarda,
Czeslava, Stanislava, Vladyslava, Barbara,
Veronika, Vaclava, Bogumila, Anna,
Genovefa, Helena, Jadviga, Joanna,
Kazimiera, Ursula, Vojcziecha, Maria,
Elizabeth Wein

You see a man drowning, you must try to save him even if you cannot swim. ~ Irena Sendler

Oh, she could get lost for days in here, Irena thought as she took in the towering shelves of the library. If only she could. ~ Lyssa Kay Adams

In the last analysis, a pickle is a cucumber with experience. ~ Irena Chalmers

People can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don't matter. ~ Irena Sendler

My plan is to make the best of whatever comes my way. ~ Irena A. Hoffman

I've stopped wanting to do any work at all. All work is bullshit. Everyone knows that. No matter how many telephones and extensions, no matter how many secretaries, no matter how many names in the rolodex. It's all bullshit. ~ Irena Klepfisz

Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn't allow us to forget. ~ Irena Sendler

I have never heard of a tradition among Jews that encourages us to support each others' differences. Quite the contrary. What I've always been taught is that Jews forever see each other as bitter enemies whose differences are irreconcilable. ~ Irena Klepfisz

In this uncertain world, the food is disposable. It is the wrappings that are permanent. ~ Irena Chalmers

If being a saint is complete devotion to a cause, bravery and altruism, then I think Mrs Sendlerowa fulfils all the conditions.I think about her the way you think about someone you owe your life to. ~ Irena Sendler