Quotes by Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.”

“How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he h...”

“I felt as if I were riding a pendulum. Just as I would swing into the abyss of hopelessness, the pendulum would swing back with some small goodness.”

“...we're dealing with two devils who both want to rule hell.”

“But how can they just decide that we're animals? They don't even know us," I said."We know us," said Mother. "They're wrong. And don't ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness.”

“Mother, why are you breaking your beautiful things?' I asked...'Because I love them so much.”

“They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit.”

“In 1991, after fifty years of brutal occupation, the three Baltic countries regained their independence, peacefully and with dignity. They chose hope over hate and showed the world that even throug...”

“My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices hav...”

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

“A guilty conscience is not worth extra food.”

“Well, I don't know, Lina. But let's just say I've met a lot of dead people.”

“Tadas was sent to the principal today," announced Jonas at dinner. He wedged a huge piece of sausage into his small mouth."Why?" I asked."Because he talked about hell," sputtered Jonas, juice from ...”

“But all of the survivors had one thing in common, and that was love. They survived through love. Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemylove reveals to us the tr...”

“He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot.We were about to become cigarettes.”

“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.”

“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 ...”

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