Wwii Quotes

“Lucy began cutting her sausage into rounds. “I can’t believe Christmas is almost upon us,” she mentioned.

“It’ll be a hard Christmas for many,” James said. “A dark Christmas for all.”

“That’s why it’s good to remember that we have the Light,” Lucy said softly.

James smiled at her. “Right you are, Lucy. Right you are.”
― Sarah Brazytis, Through the Darkness

“We're all fragile, Isabelle. It's the thing that we learn in war”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“He had good, open features and a confident air; his blue eyes were wide and watchful, but something about them seemed to hint that in different days and different times they could twinkle and sparkle with fun and mischief. His clothing was tattered and threadbare, but there was an energy to him that did not admit of pity. Somehow, despite his ragged condition, he still looked like a man who had carried a weapon and commanded other men in the not-too-distant past.”
― Sarah Brazytis, Treasures of Darkness

“Our task is to pay attention... To listen to the stories. We want all political backgrounds, all religious attitudes. The illiterate and the elite. Every ideology. Interview everyone. Learn about their lives. I need the best minds here to help.”
― Lauren Grodstein, We Must Not Think of Ourselves

“What do you recommend, James?" asked Jozef, perusing the scanty menu with a metropolitan air. "So many choices!"
Dorota giggled.
"Ah, it's recommending the fish I am," James answered gravely. "So good, you aren't needing even a drop of lemon to aid it."
Both girls tittered. Truth to be told, none of them had seen so much as a lemon peel in the last two months.”
― Sarah Brazytis, Through the Darkness

“Nobody except a demented prophet of doom could have foreseen their (Jews) terrible fate. The half million Jews of Germany, less than one percent of our population, knew they faced difficult times with Hitler's ascendance to power, but they were hardly prepared for the onslaught of repressive measures against them. ...many believed he would moderate once he legitimately headed the government. They reasoned since he had gained power by making them the scapegoats, his fury was largely a political pretense to gather votes and would abate under his new respectability. They were dead wrong.”
― Alfons Heck, A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika

“It fucking matters. What I do, our kind, signal technicians—it descends straight from you guys.”
“Our kind?” She tried to say it without sharing the classified parts. “The kind with blasted headphones and little cold rooms?”
“Yeah, them. You. Want to know the first thing I did, coming to England? I went to Bletchley Park. Because it’s Mecca to people like us. BP and all the outstations like the one you’re at. The Greatest Generation, all these girls like you sitting in little cold rooms with your headphones on. I saw that display, the Bakelite headphones and wireless receivers and what you managed to do with them, and I felt like I was in goddamn church.”
― Kate Quinn, Signal Moon

“The Aryan mind never ceases to amaze me," gloated the Nazi. "No wonder we're taking over the world!"
"You can have the rest of the globe," Jozef said dryly, "but you shall never have Poland. You may think you're winning now, but Poland will live on. Poland is not yet lost!”
― Sarah Brazytis, Treasures of Darkness

“You said imagination is good," protested Iggy, tumbling off the mattress in alarm. "You said it can take us places we've never been before!"
"Well, the only place you're going now is your own bunk, and you've certainly been there before," Jozef retorted. "Now march!”
― Sarah Brazytis, Treasures of Darkness

“Everything my life had been before and has been after pales in the light of that awesome moment when my amtrac started in amid a thunderous bombardment toward the flaming, smoke-shrouded beach for the assault on Peleliu.”
― E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“You feel like you're the king of creation in an A-10. You're up front and the plane itself--wings, engines, rudders--is way back. You sit at the end of the long snout in a fishbowl wide and bright to the world and the only thing in your head-up display is a little rubbery smudge of nose. It's really just you, slung out there. That's why pilots like Leo Pell loved the ship; you really fly her, you're really airborne, on the wind. It's World War II stuff, Jugs and Bostons lowlevel over the hedgerows of occupied Europe.”
― Stephen Hunter, The Day Before Midnight

“It is the fight of his life - of our lives - to defend our country and maybe it will show white people that we can also belong to and defend this place. We built it too, after all. It is as much our country to defend as anyone else's.”
― joshunda sanders, Women of the Post

“Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I did everything to prevent it by negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory. Since the three greatest powers on earth, together with many other nations, were fighting against us, we finally succumbed to their tremendous superiority. I stand up for the things that I have done, but I deny most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the desire to subjugate foreign peoples by wars, to murder them, to rob them, or to enslave them, or to commit atrocities or crimes. The only motive which guided me was my ardent love for my people, its happiness, its freedom, and its life. And for this I call on the Almighty and my German people to witness. (31 August 1946)”
― Hermann Göring, Trial of the Major war Criminals: before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946

“And this is their story. One of boys becoming men and waking to the prospects of life. One of flight. Of breaking ties to the earth and gliding over the hills of western North Carolina and over cities with unfamiliar names, like Schweinfurt and Regensburg, and through skies thick with flak. Of touching the clouds, the moon, and the stars. One of enduring friendship, duty, and honor.”
― Rona Simmons, A Gathering of Men

“They were said to be suffering from battle or combat fatigue, or being “flak happy,” a condition we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Most recovered from the stress when removed from combat. Some, however, carried it with them the rest of their lives.”
― Rona Simmons, A Gathering of Men

“I say that the delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. I say that this can be done; it must be done; and it will be done…

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“But the most intriguing part of the van Meegeren story is how his success as a forger got him arrested as a war criminal. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, Han-he was also an art dealer-sold one of his Vermeer forgeries, Christ with the Adulteress, to a German banker, who then sold it to Hermann Goering, number two in Hitler's command. When the painting was discovered hidden in an Austrian salt mine after the war, it was traced back to Han. On the assumption that he had sold a Dutch national treasure to the enemy during wartime, van Meegeren charged as a Nazi collaborator and thrown into jail.

Han was then faced with a choice: Confess to forging the painting or spend the rest of his life in prison. After a week in solitary confinement, he told his jailers that the painting was not a master- piece by Vermeer, just a forgery by van Meegeren. But, to both his dismay and gratification, no one believed him. So, under the vigilant eyes s of reporters and court-appointed witnesses, he repainted the forgery while a prisoner at the Headquarters of Military Command. Both of his works were "authenticated" as forgeries, and the war crime charges were dropped.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Of the Gymnasium class of 1939, half had died. Not one was yet 18.”
― Alfons Heck, A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika

“No one survives a war's front lines without ghosts clinging to them.”
― Elise Hooper, Angels of the Pacific

“– Сила музыки, – отвечает Георг. – Прощальная серенада человеку, который уходит в широкий мир. Совершенно безобидное дело, и его следует поощрять.
– И все?
– И все.
– Но это же нарушение тишины и порядка, – замечает один из полицейских.
– А если бы они пели «Германия, Германия превыше всего»? Вы бы тоже сказали, что это нарушение тишины и порядка?
– Ну, то другое дело!
– Когда человек поет, он не крадет, не убивает и не пытается свергнуть правительство, – обращается Георг к начальнику. – Вы что же, хотите весь хор засадить, потому что он всего этого не делает?
– Гоните их в шею! – шипит начальник. – Только пусть ведут себя тихо.
– Они будут вести себя тихо.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк, Черный обелиск / Жизнь взаймы

“– Ну, в более сложном смысле. Сейчас я слишком устал, чтобы объяснять. Мужчинам, которые уже полысели, не следовало бы драться. Им следовало бы философствовать.
– Тогда тебе предстоит очень одинокая жизнь. Кажется, в воздухе вообще запахло драками.
– Не думаю. Какой-то отвратительный карнавал кончился. Разве сейчас все не напоминает космический великий пост? Гигантский мыльный пузырь лопнул.
– И? – говорю я.
– И? – повторяет он.
– Кто-нибудь пустит новый мыльный пузырь, еще огромнее.
– Все может быть.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк, Черный обелиск / Жизнь взаймы

“С тех пор прошло только десять лет; но все это как будто происходило в другой жизни, в давние времена, когда людское существование текло спокойно и развивалось органически, когда все совершалось B естественной последовательности, с самого младенчества.

Война это перевернула: начиная с 1914 года Мы живем обрывками одной жизни, обрывками второй и третьей жизни; они друг с другом не связаны, да мы и не можем их связать. Поэтому мне не так уж трудно понять Изабеллу с ее многообразными жизнями. И ей, пожалуй, это даже легче дается, чем нам: когда она живет в одной жизни, она забывает обо всех остальных. У нас же все идет вперемешку: детство, оборванное войной, годы голода и обмана, годы в окопах, жажда жизни – от всего этого что-то осталось и тревожит душу. От всего этого нельзя просто отмахнуться. Неожиданно всплывает оно на поверхность вновь и вновь, непримиримое в своих противоречиях: безоблачное небо детства и опыт убийства, погибшая юность и цинизм преждевременного познания.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк, Черный обелиск / Жизнь взаймы

“Разумеется, Ризенфельд не должен терпеть убыток. Эта акула, плавающая в море человеческих слез, стремится заработать, как и всякий честный делец. Поэтому он должен тот вексель, который получит от нас, дисконтировать в своем или нашем банке. Банк констатирует, что Ризенфельду мы обеспечиваем кредит в той сумме, которая в векселе указана, возьмет с него какой-то процент и оплатит вексель. А проценты за учет мы сейчас же Ризенфельду вернем. Таким образом, он полностью получит деньги за свой гранит, как будто мы ему сразу их отдали. Но и банк ничего на этом не теряет. Он тут же передаст вексель государственному банку, который тоже выплатит ему деньги, как были выплачены деньги Ризенфельду. Только в государственном банке вексель будет лежать, пока не истечет срок и он не будет представлен к оплате. Насколько ничтожной окажется его ценность тогда, можно себе представить!

Всем этим фокусам мы научились лишь с 1922 года. До того времени мы работали, как Генрих Кроль, и чуть не обанкротились. Когда мы распродали почти весь свой запас надгробий и, к нашему удивлению, ничего взамен не приобрели, кроме обесцененных счетов в банке да нескольких чемоданов с денежными знаками, которые даже не годились на то, чтобы оклеить стены нашей конторы, мы решили как можно скорее продавать наши памятники и тут же приобретать новые материалы, однако инфляция без труда всякий раз обгоняла нас. Проходило слишком много времени, пока мы получали деньги с покупателей, а курс денег падал так быстро, что даже самая выгодная сделка приводила к убыткам. И только когда мы стали платить векселями, нам удается кое-как держаться. Да и сейчас заработок наш очень ничтожен; но хватает хотя бы на жизнь. Подобным же образом в Германии финансируется каждое предприятие, и государственный банк вынужден печатать все больше бумажных денег, вследствие чего курс падает все стремительнее. Но правительству это, видимо, тоже на руку – таким образом оно освобождается от всех своих государственных долгов. Разоряются при этом люди, оказавшиеся не в состоянии оплачивать свои покупки векселями, люди, имеющие какую-то собственность и вынужденные продавать ее, мелкие торговцы, рабочие, рантье, чьи сбережения и банкововские кредиты тают на глазах, чиновники и служащие, существующие на заработную плату, на которую уже нельзя купить даже пары новых башмаков. А наживаются на всем этом спекулянты, валютные магнаты, иностранцы – они за несколько долларов, крон или злотых могут приобретать все, что угодно, – а также крупные предприниматели, фабриканты и биржевые дельцы, акции И ценности которых растут безгранично. Эти все приобретают чуть не даром. Происходит грандиозная распродажа честных доходов, сбережений, порядочности. Хищники кружат повсюду, и только тот, кто имеет возможность делать долги, спасается от них. Они исчезают сами собой.”
― Эрих Мария Ремарк, Черный обелиск / Жизнь взаймы

“And there goes that siren again,” grumbled Mr. Clay, putting down his paper. “Just as if we haven’t got Christmas bells, or carolers, or a goose to stuff, we must have an air raid, too!”

This mild tirade was so unlike Mr. Clay that everyone in the room stopped to look at him.

“Oh, get along with you all,” he ordered, waving his hands. “The boys have convinced me to take the night off, and look where it’s going to land me – the Anderson shelter!”

“It’s going to be a tight squeeze,” Jozef admitted with a boyish grin.

“What you call cozy, yes?” put in Jedrick mischievously.

Mr. Clay grunted. “Very cozy.”
― Sarah Brazytis, Through the Darkness

“Sunrise in the Irish Sea, dawn over Dublin Bay
after a stormy night, one shivering star;
and I picture the harsh waking everywhere,
the devastations of a world at war,
airfields, radio silence, a darkened convoy
strung out in moonlight on a glittering sea.”
― Derek Mahon, The Yellow Book

“But these aren’t the first eventful times I have lived through and if I’m granted even more years then with God’s help I will most likely get to my third war. The silent course of things takes its silent, implacable course, the little man who is a hero today will tomorrow, when peace comes, be scolded in his stupid little job or maybe won’t have a job at all and will turn back into the useless piece of clockwork he used to be. And if he has a little more to him, maybe he will read the first chapter of Ecclesiastes: “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it.”

Eventful times. What remains from Italy’s eventful times in the thirteenth century except Dante’s Inferno?

Do. As if I haven’t had enough pointless doing. Oh they have nothing else, they only are when they do. I want to be, and for me to do is: not to be.”
― Nescio, Amsterdam Stories

“THIS BOOK IS WONDERFUL - RAY BRADBURY

FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS! "Wonderful story. War Eagles is a really good adventure story." amazon reader

"WW2 with a dash of fantasy! I really enjoyed stepping back in time as the race for air travel was developing. One could truly feel the passion these pilots and engineers had for these magnificent machines. The twist of stepping back into a land of Vikings and dinosaurs was very well executed." amazon reader”
― Debbie Bishop, War Eagles

“Go pick up your wife before she divorces you." -Andrew”
― Aaron Ozni, Infringing Conflict

“I told you to be careful! I told you to check these guys out! I told you to make sure.”-Vinne”
― Aaron Ozni, Infringing Conflict