Anthony Doerr

sixteen-year-old named Marie-Laure LeBlanc kneels over a low table covered entirely with a model.

Madame Hébrard, the postmistress, slides an important-looking letter from Berlin into her underpants, takes it home, and starts her evening fire with it.

But to raise one’s hopes is to risk their falling further.

total darkness is not quite darkness

Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them?

they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind.

Name me someone who does not.

But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?”

We all grew up before we were grown up