The voices / 31 fragments

Elizabeth Wein

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

How do you ever hold on to anybody?

Elizabeth Wein / quote

02Undated

She gave a low and delighted chuckle. Her eyes were black as a moonless December night and reflected the electric lights like stars.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

03Undated

Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

04Undated

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 / quote

05Undated

Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

06Undated

If you're scared, do something.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

07Undated

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 / quote

08Undated

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 / quote

09Undated

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

Elizabeth Wein / quote

10Undated

I realized I would be forced to run away from home if someone tried to arrange a marriage for me. I didn't want to think about it.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

11Undated

The wave of memory had submerged me for a whole minute, while I'd just sat staring and let it all come flooding back.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

12Undated

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

Elizabeth Wein / quote

13Undated

It was wonderful flirting with him, all the razor-edged literary banter, like Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. A battle of wit, and a test, too.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

14Undated

How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Mainsend and Buscot, which of course were where she was stationed. They could have easily checked. It's all so close to truth, and so glib--her aircraft identification is rather good considering what a fuss she makes about it. It makes me think of the first day I met her, giving those directions in German. So cool and crisp, such authority--suddenly she really was a radio operator, a German radio operator, she was so good at faking it. Or when I told her to be Jamie, how she just suddenly turned into Jamie.This confession of hers is rotten with error...

Elizabeth Wein / quote

15Undated

I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

16Undated

It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

17Undated

I am like a ruined piece of parchment scrawled over and over again with your name, so many times it has become illegible.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

18Undated

It had never occurred to me that simply being with a fellow prisoner would make me feel like I was still in prison.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

19Undated

I love the story of a thing. I love a thing for what it means a thousand times more than for what it's worth.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

20Undated

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 / quote

21Undated

Incredible. It is just incredible that you can notice something like that when your face is so cold you can't feel it anymore, and you know perfectly well you are surrounded by death, and the only way to stay alive is to endure the howling wind and hold your course. And still the sky is beautiful.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

22Undated

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 / quote

23Undated

These are just stories, you know. They are part of what we are, but they are not the real thing. All this year I’ve been thinking, What would White Raven do? And today, every time I thought it, I just didn’t care what White Raven would do. So today I’ve just done what I would do. I’ve just done what I think is right. I’m not going to stop making up stories. But I’m thinking now that they aren’t just for pretending to be someone else, someone more exciting, someone braver than you really are. They are not always jut a maze to get lost in so you can run away from life. They can just as well be maps to help you navigate.

Elizabeth Wein / quote

24Undated

Driving like a man is one of her few foibles.

Elizabeth Wein / quote