John Boyne Quotes

I felt that this must be what it would be like to be married to someone, a constant back and forth of bickering, watching out for any stray comment in a conversation that might be corrected, anything to keep gaining the upper hand, the advantage, bringing one closer to taking the game, the set and the whole blasted match without ever ceding a point. ~ John Boyne

We don't have the luxury of thinking ... Some people make all the decisions for us ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

I think perhaps the adults we become are formed in childhood and there's no way around it. ~ John Boyne

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

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. ~ John Boyne

I like the idea of standalone novels. I always found with series of books, it's something that publishers love obviously because they can make a lot of money and they build an audience from book to book, but I don't like that as a writer. I prefer the idea of just telling a story, completing it within your book, and moving on and not forcing a child to read eight of them. ~ John Boyne

Just don't ever tell yourself that you didn't know ... That would be the worst crime of all. ~ John Boyne

I married up several times. And then across once or twice. And then beneath me. I never quite found the right level somehow. Perhaps I should have married diagonally or in a slightly curved direction. ~ John Boyne

I turned to leave and was exiting the gates when I heard the sound of feet running quickly along the gravel behind me. I turned and saw Alexei, who showed no sign of slowing down, so I opened my arms and he ran into them, embracing me tightly, his arms wrapped around my neck as I lifted him off the ground.
"I wanted you to know," he said, his voice choked up as if he was trying to stop himself from crying, "I wanted you to know that you can be my brother if you like. As long as you let me be yours. ~ John Boyne

Here's a tip though', he told me, leaning over and pressing a hand into my shoulder. 'If you want to improve your time, run faster. ~ John Boyne

It's as if she understood completely the condition of loneliness and how it undermines us all, forcing us to make choices that we know are wrong for us. ~ John Boyne

Regrets and apologies are all very well, but 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. They're like brands. ~ John Boyne

Would there be no end to publishing, he wondered? Perhaps it would be a good idea if everyone just stopped writing for a couple of years, and allowed readers to catch up. ~ John Boyne

Other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of a cupboard. ~ John Boyne

What do dreams mean anyway? They're just a lot of silly nonsense.'
'Or wish fulfilment. The subconscious representation of our true desires. ~ John Boyne

With the adult ones, I feel I need to get as deep inside the psychology of a character as I can, and that needs to be first-person. In the children's books, I feel I need some distance. I don't want to be the nine-year-old at the center of the story. I need to have some type of narrative voice. ~ John Boyne

He knew that sometimes people who were sad didn't want to be asked about it; sometimes they'd offer the information themselves and sometimes they wouldn't stop talking about it for months on end, but on this occasion Bruno thought that he should wait before saying anything. ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

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

You were never a real Avery," he hissed. "You know that, don't you?"
"I do," I said.
"But Christ on a bike, you came close. You came damned close. ~ John Boyne

Peaceful in the knowledge that a long and happy relationship negates the need for constant chatter. Zoya and I had long perfected the art of sitting silently in each other's company for hours on end, while never running out of things to say. ~ 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. ~ John Boyne

The people I see from my window. In the huts, in the distance. They're all dressed the same.' 'Ah, those people,' said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. 'Those people ... well, they're not people at all, Bruno.' Bruno frowned. 'They're not?' he asked, unsure what Father meant by that. ~ John Boyne

There are days when I rather detest living in the year 1867. Everything moves so quickly. Change is happening at such a pace. I preferred the way of life thirty years ago when I was a boy. ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

It was important to look confident, he realized that very early on. After all, there was a terrible tendency among adults to look at children travelling alone as if they were planning a crime of some sort. None of them ever thought that it might just be a young chap on his way to see the world and have a great adventure. They were so small minded, grown-ups. That was one of their many problems. ~ John Boyne

I would have dearly liked to close the French doors between us for a bit of peace, but Mam wouldn't allow it; she said that solitude would give me ideas and the last thing a boy of my age needed was ideas. ~ John Boyne

But this was Dublin, the nation's capital. The place of my birth and a city I loved at the heart of a country I loathed. A town filled with good-hearted innocents, miserable bigots, adulterous husbands, conniving churchmen, paupers who received no help from the State, and millionaires who sucked the lifeblood from it. ~ John Boyne

No woman will ever take care of my children but me, she said. I will not allow it, do you understand?
And after I am gone Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it. ~ John Boyne

I started reading Dickens when I was about 12, and I particularly liked all of the orphan books. I always liked books about young people who are left on their own with the world, and the four children's books I've written feature that very thing: children that are abandoned by their families or running away from their families or ignored by their families and having to grow up quicker than they should, like David Copperfield - having to be the hero of their own story. ~ John Boyne

My six uncles, their dark hair glistening with rose-scented lacquer, sat next to her in ascending order of age and stupidity. >>
In her absence they would say that she had always been a floozy and this mattered a great deal to my mother, for she and the person they would fashion from their sordid imaginations would have little in common except for a name. ~ John Boyne

Well you've been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we're all in the same boat. And it's leaking. ~ John Boyne

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

He put his face to the glass and saw what was out there, and this time when his eyes opened wide and his mouth made the shape of an O, his hands stayed by his sides because something made him feel very cold and unsafe. ~ John Boyne

You look like a Greek God sent down by the immortal Zeus from Mount Olympus to taunt the rest of us inferior beings with your astonishing beauty, I said, which somehow in translation came out as "you look fine, why? ~ John Boyne

Should women read, Miss Caine? There's a question for you. Does it excite them too much? ~ John Boyne

I like 'fresh fruit flan'," said the donkey. "Three excellent words."
"I don't have one," said Noah immediately before the question could even be asked, and the donkey opened his eyes wide in suprise, and for a moment Noah wondered whether he might even consider eating him. ~ John Boyne

Pavel is not a doctor any more, Bruno' said Maria quietly. 'But he was. In another life. Before he came here ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

Bruno. 'In Berlin we had a big house with five floors if you counted the ~ John Boyne

But here's what you have to remember: There are no homosexuals in Ireland. You might have got it into your head that you are one but you're just wrong, it's as simple as that. You're wrong. ~ John Boyne

Do you enjoy being a writer, Mrs Avery?" asked Julian.
"No, of course not, she said. "It's a hideous profession. Entered into by narcissists who think their pathetic little imaginations will be of interest to people they've never met. ~ John Boyne

Leaving me an orphan like those characters I had spoken of the night before, if one can truly be called an orphan at twenty-one years of age. ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

Where do [writers] get [their] ideas? And the answer is that no one knows where the come from and nobody should know. They evolve in thin air, they float down from some mysterious heaven, and we reach and grab one, to grasp in our imagination, and to make it our own. One writer might overhear a conversation in a cafe and a whole novel will be built from that moment. Another might see an article in a newspaper and a plot will suggest itself immediately. Another might hear about an unpleasant incident that happened to a friend of a friend in a supermarket . . . . ~ John Boyne

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

I think Maurice is whatever he needs to be, whenever he needs to be it. He's an operator, that's for sure. ~ John Boyne

In that direction only pain lies. ~ John Boyne

I suppose books are my real passion in life. ~ John Boyne

But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told him no. No, I had not. But I had been wrong. And Tom Cardle has been right. For I had known everything, right from the start, and never acted on any of it. I had blocked it from my mind time and again, refused to recognize what was staring me in the face. I had said nothing when I should have spoken out, convincing myself that I was a man of higher character. I had been complicit in all their crimes, and people had suffered because of me. I had wasted my life. I had wasted every moment of my life. And the final irony was that it had taken a convicted pedophile to show me that in my silence, I was just as guilty as the rest of them. ~ John Boyne

I don't understand why we're not allowed on the oder side of the fence. What's so wrong with us that we can't go there and play? ~ John Boyne

The history that one can create with a friend, a lifetime of history and shared experience, is a wonderful thing and shabbily sacrificed. And yet a true friend is a rare thing; sometimes those whom we perceive as friends are simply people with whom we spend a lot of time. ~ John Boyne

He suddenly became convinced that if he didn't do something sensible, something to put his mind to some use, then before he knew it he would be wondering round the streets having fights with himself and inviting domestic animals to social occasions too. ~ John Boyne

When I make mistakes I get punished,' insisted Bruno, irritated by the fact that the rules that always applied to children never seemed to apply to grown-ups at all (despite the fact that they were the ones ho enforced them). ~ John Boyne

no man with any sense should marry the girl to whom he loses his virginity. It's like learning to drive in some clapped-out old banger and then holding on to it for the rest of your life when you've developed the skill to handle a BMW in rush-hour traffic on a busy Autobahn. ~ John Boyne

The first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. This was nothing like the kind of quiet he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. When that happened, there were always strange, unidentifiable sounds seeping into his room from the tiny gaps where the windowpanes weren't sealed together correctly. At those moments he could always tell there was life outside, even if all that life was fast asleep. It was a silence that wasn't silence at all. ~ John Boyne

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

For the first time in my life, I started to think about my own mortality. Should I fall or have a heart attack, I could lie on the kitchen floor decomposing for weeks before anyone thought to come looking for me. I didn't even have a cat to eat me. ~ John Boyne

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

But there was something about the new house that made Bruno think that no one ever laughed there; that there was nothing to laugh at and nothing to be happy about. ~ John Boyne

They sat there in ascending order of age and stupidity. ~ John Boyne

Please don't embarrass yourself by offering an opinion. ~ John Boyne

It's enough to make me laugh. I close the door behind me and sit down again, considering this, and truly, I find it so funny that I laugh until I cry.
And when the tears come I think aah ...
So this is what it means to be alone. ~ John Boyne

And been committed to a home for the bewildered ~ John Boyne

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. ~ John Boyne

Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoloeague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore. ~ John Boyne

Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day?
Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away.
Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away. ~ John Boyne

A marriage should be about friendship and companionship, not about sex. ~ John Boyne

Walk slowly," said a voice from behind me, and I turned around and felt my heart jump in delight. "Remember, you're on a crutch and she's an old lady."
"You came!" I said.
"I heard you were looking for me. Julian told me."
"I didn't think I'd see you. Not till, you know, till it was my turn."
"I couldn't wait," he said.
"You look exactly the same as you did on that last day. In Central Park."
"Actually, I'm a few pounds lighter," he said. "I've been on a fitness drive."
"Good for you." I stared at him and felt the tears forming in my eyes. "Do you know how much I've missed you?" I asked him. "It's been almost thirty years. I shouldn't have had to spend all that time on my own."
"I know, but it's nearly over. And you haven't done a bad job of it at the same time, given the mess you made of the first thirty. The years apart will feel like nothing compared to what we have before us."
"The music's started," said my mother, clutching me to her.
"I have to go, Bastiaan," I said. "Will I see you later?"
"No. But I'll be there in November when you arrive."
"All right." I took a deep breath. "I love you."
"I love you too," said my mother. "Shall we go?"
I nodded and stepped forward, and slowly we made our way down the aisle, passing the faces of our friends and family, and I delivered her into the arms of a kind man who swore to love her and take care of her for the rest of her life.
And at the end, when the e ~ John Boyne

I've spent so much time pushing the boat out that I forgot to jump on and now it's out beyond the harbour on the high seas, but it's very nice to look at. ~ John Boyne

Don't you ever think,' he asked cautiously, 'that it would be better to be a bully than to be bullied? At least that way no one could ever hurt you.'

Katarina turned to him in amazement. 'No,' she said definitively, shaking her head. 'No Pieter, I never think that, not for a moment. ~ John Boyne

Let's not play games, Mr. Cratchett," I replied. "I wanted to let you know that I'll be coming in for an appointment with Mr. Raisin on Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. I shall need about an hour and would prefer it if we were not disturbed during that time. I hope that he will be free at that hour but just so you both know, if he is not, then I am perfectly willing to sit in your office until he is free. I shall bring a book with me to pass the time. I shall bring two, if need be. I shall bring the complete works of Shakespeare if he insists on keeping me waiting interminably and those plays will get me through the long hours. But I will not leave until I have seen him, are we quite clear on that? Now, I wish you a very pleasant Sunday, Mr. Cratchett. Enjoy your lunch, won't you? Your breath smells of whisky. ~ John Boyne

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? ~ John Boyne

His position, like so many of his ilk, was one of uncontested and unearned respect. ~ John Boyne

The problem with today's young people', I said, 'isn't that they do things which are bad for them, as so much of the media likes to think. It's that they don't do these things right. You're all so intent on getting off your heads on drugs that you don't think about the fact that you could overdose and, to put it plainly, die. You drink until your liver explodes. You smoke until your lungs collapse beneath the rot. You create diseases which threaten to wipe you out. Have fun, by all means. Be debauched, it's your duty. But be wise about it. All things in excess, but just know how to cope with them, that's all I ask. ~ John Boyne

But they'd never once invited any of the striped pyjama people to dinner. ~ John Boyne

My mother was Evelin's Hartford," said Maude, as if this would mean something to one or the other of us. "So you know, she simply adored chairs. ~ John Boyne

Every man is afraid of women as far as I can see. ~ John Boyne

You're a bit of an oddball, Jonathan,' I said. 'Has anyone ever told you that?'
'Nineteen people this year alone,' he said. 'And it's only May. ~ John Boyne

It has always astonished me, Georgy Daniilovich, that those who are most repulsed by autocratic or dictatorial rule are among the first to eliminate their enemies once they take on the mantle of power themselves. ~ John Boyne

He's crazy," Bruno said, twirling a finger in circles around the side of his head and whistling to indicate just how crazy he thought he was. "He went up to a cat on the street the other day and invited her over for afternoon tea." "What did the cat say?" asked Gretel, who was making a sandwich in the corner of the kitchen. "Nothing." explained Bruno. "It was a cat. ~ John Boyne

I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it. ~ John Boyne

And I am not one of these long-living fictional characters who prays for death as a release from the captivity of eternal life; not for me the endless whining and wailing of the undead. ~ John Boyne

We're none of us normal. Not in this fucking country. ~ John Boyne

It was the fact that I didn't want to kill anyone. I wasn't put on this earth to murder my fellow man. I'd grown up with violence - can't you see that? I can't bear it. ~ John Boyne

It reminds me of how grandmother always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be. ~ John Boyne

Gretel: Not the type of children I want to play with.
Bruno: I could come over on a visit and no one would be any the wiser. ~ John Boyne

And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos 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 it go. ~ John Boyne

He decided to talk to the Hopeless Case ~ John Boyne

I wrote my first book at 20, but my whole focus from about the age of 12 was to be a writer. ~ John Boyne

the ground for I know not how long. Of course ~ John Boyne

How can something still feel so painful after twenty-eight years, I asked myself. Is there no recovery from the traumas of our youth? ~ John Boyne

We even shared a young man from time to time. Oh don't look so shocked, Cyril. It was the 1930s, people were a lot more evolved then than they are today. ~ John Boyne

And shortly after that the blob became a figure. And then, as Bruno got even closer, he saw that the thing was neither a dot nor a speck nor a blob nor a figure, but a person. ~ John Boyne

It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing. ~ John Boyne

Actually, they were very strange parents,' I told her. 'Neither of them were what you might call conventional people. And they had an extremely peculiar approach to parenting. Sometimes I felt as if I were little more than a tenant in their house, as if they weren't entirely sure what I was doing there. But they never mistreated me, nor did they ever do anything to hurt me. And perhaps they loved me in their own way. The concept itself might have been slightly alien to them.'
'And did you love them?'
'Yes, I did,' I said without hesitation. 'I loved them both very much. Despite everything. But then children usually do. They look for safety and security, and one way or another Charles and Maude provided that.' (p. 556) ~ John Boyne

Children's book writers tend to feel quite superior, and adult writers tend to feel they wouldn't know how to write a children's book - which might surprise you because I think a lot of people think it's the other way around. ~ John Boyne

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

A man was standing at the end of the hallway, just outside an open door, from where a great light shone, illuminating him almost as a god. ~ John Boyne