Annemarie Johansen Quotes

“Once I had three daughters. Tonight I am proud to have three daughters again.”

“It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark.”

″‘Where is my necklace?’ she asked. ‘What did you do with it?’ ‘I hid it in a safe place,’ Annemarie told her. ‘A very secret place where no one will ever find it. And I will keep it there for you until it is safe for you to wear it again.’

″‘What’s happening?’ Annemarie asked when she and Ellen were alone with Papa in the living room. ‘Something’s wrong. What is it?’ Papa’s face was troubled. ‘I wish that I could protect you children from this knowledge,’ he said quietly.”

“For a moment, to Annemarie, listening, it seemed like all the earlier times, the happy visits to the farm in the past with summer daylight extending beyond bedtime, with the children tucked away in the bedrooms and the grownups downstairs talking.”

“Annemarie felt a surge of sadness; the bond of their friendship had not broken, but it was as if Ellen had moved now into a different world, the world of her own family and whatever lay ahead for them.”

“You will, little one. You saved her life, after all. Someday you will find her again. Someday the war will end. All wars do.”

“She hesitated and glanced at her mother, fearful that she had said the wrong thing, the thing that would bring the pained look to her mother’s face.”

“Annemarie admitted to herself, snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage.”

“The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. ‘And they lived happily ever after,’ Annemarie recited, whispering into the dark, completing the tale for her sister, who slept beside her, one thumb in her mouth.”