Elizabeth Wein quotes

Hope is the most treacherous thing in the world. It lifts you and lets you plummet. But as long as you're being lifted you don't worry about plummeting.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Long #Worry #World

We are a sensational team
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Team #Sensational

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Wall #Style #Wonderland

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Fire #Flames #Mind

Incredible what slender threads you begin to hang your hopes on.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Incredibles #Slender #Thread

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Real #Lasts #Three

Don't know how I kept going. You just do. You have to, so you do.
-- Elizabeth Wein

It never occurred to him that now he was looking at his master, at the one person in all the world who held his fate right between her palms - me, in patched hand-me-downs and untrimmed hair and idiot smile - and that my hatred for him is pure and black and unforgiving. And that I don't believe in God, but if I did, if I did, it would be the God of Moses, angry and demanding and OUT FOR REVENGE...
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Revenge #Believe #Fate

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

#Weeping

I felt like one who wants to trap and cage a little bird, and after years of waiting and luring and baiting finds that she must do no more than hold out her hand, and the finch lands on her finger and does not fly. You scarcely dare to move. It rests on your hand whole and free, foolishly trusting and infinitely courageous. It will never be more beautiful.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Beautiful #Moving #Hands

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Years #Mind #Insane

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

#Believe #Brain #Acrobatics

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

It is so hard trying to say what you mean.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Mean #Trying

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Fall #Oxygen #Paper

Careless talk costs lives.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Cost #Careless

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.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Team #Kissing #Battle

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

#Fighting #World #Realistic

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

#Heart #My Heart #Electricity

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!
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Daughter #Hypocrite #Thinking

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

#Ink #Cry

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

#Dark #Sky #Flying

It's like being in love, discovering your best friend.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Love #Being In Love #Your Best Friend

But I have told the truth. Isn't that ironic? They sent me because I am so good at telling lies. But I have told the truth.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Lying #Ironic #Telling Lies

It's impossible to stall a Lizzie.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Impossible

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

#Fighting #Faces #Execution

He just put his hand through the bulkhead, exactly as she'd done, and squeezed my shoulder. He has very strong fingers. And he kept his hand there the whole way home, even when he was reading the map and giving me headings. So I am not flying alone now after all.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Strong #Reading #Home

Please come back soon. The window is always open.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Window #Please

How did you ever get here, Maddie Brodatt?" "'Second to the right, and then straight on till morning,'" she answered promptly-it did feel like Neverland. "Crikey, am I so obviously Peter Pan?" Maddie laughed. "The Lost Boys give it away." Jamie studied his hands. "Mother keeps the windows open in all our bedrooms while we're gone, like Mrs. Darling, just in case we come flying home when she's not expecting us.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Mother #Morning #Home

If you show this devious little liar one atom's worth of compassion I will have you shot.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Liars #Compassion #Atoms

Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Execution #Debate #Masters

Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Elephants #Balloons #Ghost

But a part of me lies buried in lace and roses on a riverbank in France-a part of me is broken off forever. A part of me will be unflyable, stuck in the climb.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Lying #Broken #Rose

It was a rather extraordinary conversation if you think about it -- both of us speaking in code. But not military code, not Intelligence or Resistance code -- just feminine code.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Military #Thinking #Resistance

And I envied her that she had chosen her work herself and was doing what she wanted to do. I don't suppose I had any idea what I 'wanted' and so I was chosen, not choosing. There's glory and honor in being chosen. But not much room for free will.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Ideas #Honor #Rooms

There’s glory and honour in being chosen. But not much room for free will
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Rooms #Free Will #Glory

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

#Stuck #Climbs

Maddie took the top of her egg off. The hot bright yolk was like summer sun breaking through cloud. The first daffodil in the snow. A gold sovereign wrapped in a white silk handkerchief. She dipped her spoon in it and licked it.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Summer #Clouds #Eggs

But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.
-- Elizabeth Wein

#Moving #People #Needs