Ruta Sepetys Quotes

What if this is a horrible mistake?" I croaked. "Oh, it'll be horrible fine, just a bunch of pretentious rich people with shelves of expensive books they've never read.

Jo, they have a baby grand piano, but no one in the family plays. They have shelves of books they've never read, and the tension between the couples was so thick it nearly choked us.""Let me tell you something 'bout those rich Uptown folk," said Cokie. "They got everything that money can buy, their bank accounts are fat, but they ain't happy. They ain't ever gone be happy. You know why? They soul broke. And money can't fix that, no sir. My friend Bix was poor. Lord, he had to blow that trumpet ten hours a day just to put a little taste in the pot. Died poor, too. You saw him, Jo, with that plate on his chest. But that man wasn't soul broke.

Unless it was Cokie, gifts from men weren't free.

You stand for what is right, without the expectation of gratitude or reward.

I remembered Papa talking about Stalin confiscating peasants' land, tools, and animals. He told them what crops they would produce and how much they would be paid. I thought it was ridiculous. How could Stalin simply take something that didn't belong to him, something that a farmer and his family had worked their whole lives for? "That's communism, Lina," Papa had said.

We'd be trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realize that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.

All the little duckies with their heads in the waterHeads in the waterAll the little duckies with their heads in the waterOh, such sweet little duckies.

I was surrounded by hundreds of drowned children, heads in the water, their little feet in the air.All the little duckies, with their heads in the waterHeads in the water.It was my punishment. Honor lost. Everything lost.Shame is a hunter.My shame was all around me now.