Top 200 John Boyne Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you’re pretending to be.”

— John Boyne

152. “You know, some day, when you’re all older,’ he said, looking around the room, ’you’re going to have troubles of your own and you’ll have friends who are going through tough times. Maybe it’ll even be one of your own children. And when that happens, you’ll look back at the way you’re all behaving now and wonder whether you might not have been able to show a little more kindness.”

— John Boyne

153. “True horror is all the more potent for being implicit.”

— John Boyne

154. “The novel was written by Anshel Bronstein, the boy who had lived in the flat below him as a child. Of course, he remembered, he had wanted to be a writer. It seemed that his ambition had come true.”

— John Boyne

155. “It starts in the schoolyard, with small boys fighting among each other. In the 1930s, the Reich found a people to hate. Now, twenty years later, it’s us who are hunted down. When they discover one of us, they bring us to a courtroom so the world can hear of our crimes but, really, all they want is to shoot us, hang us, kill us in any way they can. We’re all just trying to survive.”

— John Boyne

156. “We hadden de Furie nooit te eten moeten vragen,′ zei ze. ‘Sommige mensen moeten zo nodig hogerop komen.”

— John Boyne

157. “E’ la storia che ci ha condotto fin qui. Se non fosse per la storia, nessuno di noi oggi sarebbe seduto a questa tavola. Saremmo tranquillamente seduti nella nostra casa di Berlino. Stiamo correggendo la storia, qui.”

— John Boyne

158. “Well, I’m not advocating it,” I said. “I just mean that before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It’s one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.”

— John Boyne

159. “Honestly, Ignac, I look back at my life and I don’t understand very much of it. It seems like it would have been so simple now to have been honest with everyone, especially Julian.”

— John Boyne

160. “Those pints won’t drink themselves.”

— John Boyne

161. “I’m seven,’ said Pierrot, sitting up straight, mortally offended.”

— John Boyne

162. “Naturally, I have grown to recognize some of my fellow visitors, the widows and widowers in waiting who wander the corridors in terrified loneliness, deprived for the first time in decades of their favourite person.”

— John Boyne

163. “This is a Bible, you blasphemous cretin,” he said, his face now growing even redder than before. “This is the word of the Lord.” “If you say so,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “He only had one book in him, though, didn’t he? Couldn’t write another?”

— John Boyne

164. “I’m educating strangers on how they can live better lives. And making sure that those with the wrong opinions are held to account.”

— John Boyne

165. “What are you playing?” I asked him. “War.” “Is that a game?” “It’s the best game in the world.” “And are you winning?” “I won’t know till it’s over.” “And perhaps not even then.”

— John Boyne

166. “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.”

— John Boyne

167. “What I would not have given to be that young at this time and to be able to experience such unashamed honesty.”

— John Boyne

168. “You were cruel.’ ‘I was obedient.”

— John Boyne

169. “It’s no longer a fiction, Gretel. Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.”

— John Boyne

170. “You have it.” she said. “And for what little it is worth, I hope that it brings you peace.”

— John Boyne

171. “I understand that some people prefer the third person plural for a pronoun,’ he replied, having recently interviewed a pop singer on his show who’d insisted upon this, leading one of the cameramen to be fired for calling them Sibyl, after the Sally Field movie about the woman with multiple personalities.”

— John Boyne

172. “I’ve always considered myself to be the sturdy type. You know, the sort who can put up with any unpleasant situation if I have to.”

— John Boyne

173. “An old man should not resent those who are sent to take his place, and to recall when I was young and healthy and virile is an act of masochism that serves no purpose.”

— John Boyne

174. “You were a terrible monster of a man and wherever you are you should feel shame for the way you lived your life.”

— John Boyne

175. “I sometimes feel as if I wasn’t supposed to live among people at all. As if I would be happier on a little island somewhere, all alone with my books and some writing material for company. I could grow my own food and never have to speak to a soul.”

— John Boyne

176. “But then I didn’t know what I was giving up until it was already gone. No one ever does, do they?”

— John Boyne

177. “On the day that Max showed up, I hadn’t spoken to a single person in eight days. I’d kept note of it in a diary. I hadn’t raised my hand in class, hadn’t said a word to anyone in school, had eaten my meals in perfect silence, which was how Maude preferred it anyway, and generally hid away in my bedroom, wondering what was wrong with me, for even at that tender age I know that there was something about me that was different and that would be impossible ever to put right.”

— John Boyne

178. “Is it too much to ask for decent transportation during one’s lifetime?”

— John Boyne

179. “You heard it all. You saw it all. You knew it all. And you also know the things you are responsible for.’ She hesitated, but it needed to be said. ‘The deaths you have on your conscience. But you’re a young man still, you’re only sixteen; you have many years ahead of you to come to terms with your complicity in these matters. Just don’t ever tell yourself that you didn’t know.’ She released him now from her grip. ‘That would be the worst crime of all.”

— John Boyne

180. “He lifted his pint and took a long gulp and I watched his face grimace a little as he tried to swallow. His eyes closed briefly as he fought the urge to spit it back up. ‘Christ, that tastes good,’ he said with all the credibility of a Parisian complimenting a meal in Central London. ‘I needed that.”

— John Boyne

181. “Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.”

— John Boyne

182. “And they would surely find some way of suggesting that you were as guilty as any of us. No matter how young you were.”

— John Boyne

183. “Remember, my young friend, life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practise.’ He winked at me. ‘Forster.”

— John Boyne

184. “Bruno: Me parece que no puedo dejarlo. Me parece que no quiero.”

— John Boyne

185. “My great fear when Caden was born was that he would remind me of my brother.”

— John Boyne

186. “That was guilt.”

— John Boyne

187. “By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.”

— John Boyne

188. “Heil Hitler,′ zei hij, wat, voor zover hij wist, een andere manier was om te zeggen ‘Tot ziens en een prettige dag verder’.”

— John Boyne

189. “It takes all sorts to make a world.”

— John Boyne

190. “You don’t want to be labelled with a conventional pronoun that has been in common usage since the English tongue was first established,’ continued Beverley. ‘And so, instead, you’d like to be labelled with an equally conventional pronoun that has been in common usage since the English tongue was first established. Simply the pluralized version. That’s it, isn’t it?”

— John Boyne

191. “I’ve known violence, I’ve known bigotry. I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive.”

— John Boyne

192. “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

193. “Why are you so afraid of people being happy?” he read. “Why can’t you just live and let live?”

— John Boyne

194. “And, you’ll forgive me for sounding immodest, but i know that i’m good-looking. Throughout my life, both men and women have made their interest in me obvious. But I can’t control any of that. It was simply the way I was born. Ultimately, it means nothing. I could have a heart of stone for all they know. I could be a psychopath or a sociopath. Not all monsters look like the Elephant Man, and not everyone who looks like the Elephant Man is a monster.”

— John Boyne

195. “Standing there in your uniform,’ she continued, ’as if it makes you something special. Not even caring what it means really. What it stands for.”

— John Boyne

196. “People that are, you know, constantly alert to every injustice in society, every perceived slight, and who are just desperate to let you know when they’ve found one. They seek them out with all the urgency of truffling pigs.”

— John Boyne

197. “They looked at each other in absolute horror, as if they knew that they couldn’t possibly control the chain of events set in place by that simple, inevitable meeting. The lives they had lived until that moment had come to an end. And then it didn’t matter what happened next, their destinies were already decided.”

— John Boyne

198. “The powers that be, the Great Unelected Consciences of the World, didn’t approve of what she said and that was the end of her.”

— John Boyne

199. “My twin contradictory places of idleness: the public bar and the chapel. One so social and teeming with life, the other quiet and warning of death.”

— John Boyne

200. “Waarom zou vader op zo’n nare plek willen werken met al die buren? Het slaat nergens op.”

— John Boyne