Elizabeth Wein quotes:

Kiss me, Hardy!' Weren't those Nelson's last words at the Battle of Trafalgar? Don't cry. We're still alive and we make a sensational team.

It was a rather extraordinary conversation if you think about it -- both of us speaking in code. But not military code, not Intelligence or Resistance code -- just feminine code.

Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.

But I have told the truth. Isn't that ironic? They sent me because I am so good at telling lies. But I have told the truth.

God knows what I thought! Your brain does amazing acrobatics when it doesn't want to believe something.

There were no route maps posted on the walls, but a Wonderland-style sign commanding, 'If you know where you are, then please tell others.

You know, it set you at war with yourself.

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.

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.

Maddie took the top of her egg off. The hot bright yolk was like summer sun breaking through cloud. The first daffodil in the snow. A gold sovereign wrapped in a white silk handkerchief. She dipped her spoon in it and licked it.

Julie would have died there.

Oh Julie, wouldn't I know if you were dead? Wouldn't I feel it happening, like a jolt of electricity to my heart?

Von Loewe really should know me well enough by now to realize that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.

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

Careless talk costs lives.

I felt like one who wants to trap and cage a little bird, and after years of waiting and luring and baiting finds that she must do no more than hold out her hand, and the finch lands on her finger and does not fly. You scarcely dare to move. It rests on your hand whole and free, foolishly trusting and infinitely courageous. It will never be more beautiful.

...unless you were doing them a favor by killing them. Then, you'd let them down if you didn't, if you couldn't make yourself.

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

Taran. We go down fighting.

Hope is the most treacherous thing in the world. It lifts you and lets you plummet. But as long as you're being lifted you don't worry about plummeting.

Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing - and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing.

One moment flying in green sunlight, then the sky suddenly grey and dark.

She whispered, 'C'etait la Verite?' Was that Verity? Or perhaps she just meant, Was that the truth? Was it true? Did any of it really happen? Were the last three hours real? 'Yes,' I whispered back. 'Oui. C'etait la verite.

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.

Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.

If you show this devious little liar one atom's worth of compassion I will have you shot.

How did you ever get here, Maddie Brodatt?" "'Second to the right, and then straight on till morning,'" she answered promptly-it did feel like Neverland. "Crikey, am I so obviously Peter Pan?" Maddie laughed. "The Lost Boys give it away." Jamie studied his hands. "Mother keeps the windows open in all our bedrooms while we're gone, like Mrs. Darling, just in case we come flying home when she's not expecting us.

Fight with realistic hope, not to destroy all the world's wrong, but to renew its good.

It never occurred to him that now he was looking at his master, at the one person in all the world who held his fate right between her palms - me, in patched hand-me-downs and untrimmed hair and idiot smile - and that my hatred for him is pure and black and unforgiving. And that I don't believe in God, but if I did, if I did, it would be the God of Moses, angry and demanding and OUT FOR REVENGE...

You can't just sit in a corner weeping or you'll die.

It's an illusion I've noticed before-- words on a page are like oxygen to a petrol engine, firing up ghosts. It only lasts while the words are in your head. After you put down the paper or pen, the pistons fall lifeless again.

Hope is treacherous, but how can you live without it?

It is so hard trying to say what you mean.

Incredible what slender threads you begin to hang your hopes on.

It's like being in love, discovering your best friend.

It's impossible to stall a Lizzie.

He just put his hand through the bulkhead, exactly as she'd done, and squeezed my shoulder. He has very strong fingers. And he kept his hand there the whole way home, even when he was reading the map and giving me headings. So I am not flying alone now after all.

Please come back soon. The window is always open.

A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.

Must stop. This ink is amazing, it really doesn't smear, even when you cry on it

We are a sensational team

There is only one reason I did not go down in flames over the Angers, and that is because I knew I had Julie in the back. Would never have had the presence of mind to put that fire out if I hadn't been trying to save her life.