Top 180 Kristin Harmel Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 3 of 4

101. “Hope, you can’t go through life living by all the rules and doing what people expect of you without thinking for yourself, you know? That’s how you wake up at the age of eighty or whatever and realize life has passed you by.”

— Kristin Harmel

102. “But considering the way so many records were lost or destroyed in the war, it shouldn’t be difficult to plant a few pieux mensonges, white lies.”

— Kristin Harmel

103. “There are truly terrible people in this world.” Ruby pulled Charlotte into a hug. “But there are good people too. And I like to think that.”

— Kristin Harmel

104. “One’s reward for marching through the decades is a gradual process of erasure.”

— Kristin Harmel

105. “Her age made her particularly invisible to those who cared most about appearance and power;.”

— Kristin Harmel

106. “Yes, but mine were never as good as yours.” She could feel his smile against her cheek as she whispered into his ear. “I admit it now. So I am glad you are here with your documents.” He paused and added, ‘Well, actually, I am simply glad you are here.”

— Kristin Harmel

107. “But when you grow comfortable hiding within a protective shell, it’s harder than one might expect to stand up and say, “Actually, folks, this is who I am.”

— Kristin Harmel

108. “Some chapters must be finished, though, some books closed.”

— Kristin Harmel

109. “Libraries are very magical places.”

— Kristin Harmel

110. “It is mankind that creates the differences, she’d told me last week. That does not mean it is not all the same God.”

— Kristin Harmel

111. “People should always help others in need; there was no other way for the human race to survive.”

— Kristin Harmel

112. “Later that night, after Mamusia had gone to sleep, Tatus found Eva in the small library off the parlor, shelves piled high with all the books the two of them treasured so much. He had taught her to love reading, one of the greatest gifts a parent could give a child, and in doing so, he had opened the world to her.”

— Kristin Harmel

113. “I mean that love is all around us,” Alain says. “But the older we get, the more confusing it becomes. The more times we’ve been hurt, the harder it is to see love right in front of us, or to accept love into our hearts and truly believe in it. And if you cannot accept love, you can never really feel it.”

— Kristin Harmel

114. “Yearning for a life you don’t understand is like staring at the sun. Your foolishness will destroy you.”

— Kristin Harmel

115. “Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die.’ This is our country, my dear, and I will fight for its honor to the end.”

— Kristin Harmel

116. “Someone who sees her reflection in the words.”

— Kristin Harmel

117. “By the grace of God, may we all be vanishing stars.”

— Kristin Harmel

118. “The thing is, not every happily ever after needs to end with a Prince Charming,” I say after a pause. “I already had my prince, and if there’s another one out there, great. But I’m not sitting around waiting to get rescued. It’s time that I’m the one doing the saving.”

— Kristin Harmel

119. “But God believes in you, my dear,” Sister Maria Andrzeja replied immediately. She looked up and held Yona’s gaze. “And that makes us all the same, all over the world.”

— Kristin Harmel

120. “Most people find themselves charmed by me eventually. Now come, are you trying to leave a trail behind us on the streets of Paris? Are we Hansel and Gretel?”

— Kristin Harmel

121. “You can’t heal a heart that has been smashed to pieces; you can only move forward, doing your best to hold the shards together until they eventually form into something new.”

— Kristin Harmel

122. “She doesn’t understand what it means to love books so passionately that you would die without them, that you would simply stop breathing, stop existing.”

— Kristin Harmel

123. “You see, when you look back on things later in life, it’s sometimes easier to see the purpose. So perhaps for now, it’s best to try your hardest to focus on what lies ahead. The future is still something that can be changed, isn’t it?”

— Kristin Harmel

124. “I don’t know much about these things. But I think that broken hearts heal. I think that perhaps the only way through that kind of pain is to move forward. I think that losing people you love changes you forever, but I think that God finds a way to let the light in.”

— Kristin Harmel

125. “I knew on some level that he was right, but my anger toward my dad was like a badge of honor, something that united my mom and me. Letting it go would be like losing a piece of who I was.”

— Kristin Harmel

126. “I meant that in a way I’m like Dorothee, aren’t I? I’m on a great adventure and one day I’ll find my way home.”

— Kristin Harmel

127. “But I think you stand to lose far more when your heart is closed,” Chaim said. “That is no life.”

— Kristin Harmel

128. “It is not religion that divides man. It is good and evil here on earth that divides us.”

— Kristin Harmel

129. “Please. I learned far too late that life is simply about being good and decent to others. It’s as plain as that. But first, you must be good and decent to yourself. Find.”

— Kristin Harmel

130. “Where? Where did he go?” “East.” Eva took a deep breath. “To a work camp called Auschwitz. In Poland.” “But that’s impossible. He was taken less than a week ago. And we live in France, Eva. This doesn’t happen in France.” “I’m afraid it does.” Eva could see the crush of people penned up at Drancy each time she closed her eyes. “But we left Poland. We – we are French.” “We are Jews.”

— Kristin Harmel

131. “I smile tightly at him. I’m allowed to feel annoyed with my daughter, but he’s not. “She’s just going through a hard time,” I say.”

— Kristin Harmel

132. “Maybe in the end you can’t run from who you are without destroying your life.”

— Kristin Harmel

133. “Distraction wasn’t an impenatrable dam.”

— Kristin Harmel

134. “I’m in a place foreign to me, but there’s something about Paris that feels very familiar. I wonder for the first time if a sense of place can be passed down through the blood.”

— Kristin Harmel

135. “The truth is, since the day I met her, it’s all been for her. My whole life. My whole existence. I don’t know how I’ll say good-bye.”

— Kristin Harmel

136. “Maybe I owed it to him – and to myself, in a way – to try harder to understand where he was coming from, but the thought of letting down my walls was terrifying. It was my anger that kept me safe.”

— Kristin Harmel

137. “Remember: the planes cost a bloody fortune. You, on the other hand, are easily replaceable. Act accordingly.”

— Kristin Harmel

138. “Once you discover that you can make magic with a brush, painting becomes like breathing. You can’t live without.”

— Kristin Harmel

139. “It was the war that kept us apart. The world went mad, and your grandfather was no more responsible for the outcome than I was, or than Rose was. We all made our choices. We all had to live with our regrets.”

— Kristin Harmel

140. “I know that now, in the world today, young people take freedom for granted. All the things you have, all of the freedoms you enjoy, they are things you were born with.”

— Kristin Harmel

141. “As soon as I close the door behind him, I reach for the phone and call the main number for Delta. Ten minutes later, I’m rebooked on the 3:11 flight today, leaving six hours earlier and arriving in Berlin at 10:50 tomorrow morning after a connection in New York. I didn’t exactly lie to Ben, I reassure myself. I am changing my flight, just like I said.”

— Kristin Harmel

142. “Because books bring us to another time and place,” the.”

— Kristin Harmel

143. “Yona shook her head. “He sees me as more than I am, I think.” “No. He sees you for exactly who you are. And that is very difficult for him.”

— Kristin Harmel

144. “That’s what books were for, after all. They were passageways to other worlds, other realities, other lives one could imagine living.”

— Kristin Harmel

145. “She hadn’t realized that once one opened the door to one’s heart, it was impossible to fully close it again.”

— Kristin Harmel

146. “Indeed. When it comes to books, the saucier, the better, don’t you think?”

— Kristin Harmel

147. “And to librarians and booksellers everywhere, who ensure that the books with the power to change lives find their way into the hands of the people who need them most.”

— Kristin Harmel

148. “You didn’t think that was just a holiday for them, did you? Surely you don’t expect me to let them simply sit around and play. Their brains would turn to soup.”

— Kristin Harmel

149. “It was a terrible idea to live a life dictated by someone else’s prejudices.”

— Kristin Harmel

150. “You got the library wrong, Eva.”

— Kristin Harmel