Anne Holm Quotes

#1. And his eyes frighten me, too. They're the eyes of an old man, an old man who's seen so much in life that he no longer cares to go on living. They're not even desperate ... just quiet and expectant, and very, very lonely, as if he were quite alone of his own free choice.

Anne Holm

#2. Being brave meant that though you might be frightened, you would face the greatest danger if you knew it was the right thing to do.

Anne Holm

#3. Angelo was a grown man, and here was one thing he was quite free to decide for himself, and yet he was ready to let others make up his mind for him ... that could only be stupidity.

Anne Holm

#4. Americans were most likely good people ... the only thing wrong with them, David thought, was that they spoke English very badly.

Anne Holm

#5. Johannes had once said that violence and cruelty were just a stupid person's way of making himself felt, because it was easer to use your hands to strike a blow than to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to the problem.

Anne Holm

#6. Never let me hear you say it's someone else's fault. It often is, but you must never shirk your own responsibility ... You can't change others, but you can do something about a fault in yourself.

Anne Holm

#7. Joy passed, but happiness never completely disappeared; a touch of it would always remain to remind one it had been there. It was happiness that made one smile, then.

Anne Holm

#8. All suffering has an end, David, if only you wait long enough. Sorrow has its life like people. Sorrow is born and lives and dies. And when it's dead and gone, someone's left behind to remember it. Exactly like people.

Anne Holm

#9. But Johannes had said, Politeness is something you owe other people, because when you show a little courtesy, everything becomes easier and better. But first and foremost, it's something you owe yourself. You are David.

Anne Holm

#10. Yes, he had made a good choice after all when he had chosen the God of the green pasture and the still waters! He was very powerful, and the fact that He expected you to think for yourself and do something in return for His help did not matter, as long as you could work things out.

Anne Holm

#11. For a moment David was tempted to think that perhaps there were no good people at all outside concentration camps, but then he reminded himself of the sailor and Angelo and the English people who might have been ignorant but were certainly not bad.

Anne Holm

#12. The angrier you were, the less likely you were to think clearly.

Anne Holm

#13. What you didn't have, you didn't have.

Anne Holm

#14. I wrote "David" because it seemed to me that children, who can love a book more passionately than any grown person, got such a lot of harmless entertainment and not enough real, valuable literature.

Anne Holm

#15. Violence and cruelty were just a stupid person's way of making himself felt, because it was easier to use your hands to strike a blow then to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to a problem.

Anne Holm

#16. There's always something when you're at fault, too, and that fault you must discover and learn to recognize and take the consequences of it.

Anne Holm

#17. And it was most important to do what one knew was right, for otherwise the day might come when one could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong.

Anne Holm

#18. You could not bribe honest people, but bad people would accept bribery.

Anne Holm

#19. God of the green pastures and the still waters, please don't help me. I want to do it by myself so that You'll know I've found something I can do for You ... I am David. Amen.

Anne Holm