22 Quotes by Julie Orringer

But was it cowardice to call out a lie, to insist on truth?

Life, oblivious to his grief, continued

Varian had to remind himself that these were not merely political ciphers, nor scrawled signatures, nor ghostly photographic images; they were human beings, real men and women whose genius placed them at risk, who were in peril, in concentration camps, in hiding, or worse, living in plain view, ignorant to the threat of their own lives.

I wondered how it could be that people could love God and hate one another.

I'm not named after the character,' she said. 'I'm named after the entire opera.

This is the Centre Americain de Secours. What is more American than wild hope?

Varian sat silent for a moment, his hands between his knees. "All my life I've enjoyed perfect privilege," he said. "American, rich, Protestant, Harvard-educated. I could walk down the street anywhere and feel, God help me, like a master.

The [bird's] nest with its streamers was a final unbidden touch: It was what human hands had not brought to the building, and could not remove. It was like love, he thought, this crumbling chapel: It had been complicated, and thereby perfected, by what time had done to it.

The smoothest way is sometimes full of stones.