Joana Vilkas Quotes

“Joana still had her mother. Reuniting with her mother was her motivation. She would slay dragons to get to her. Mother was anchor. Mother was comfort. Mother was home. A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean.”

“Guilt is a hunter. My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child. It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.”

“I had agreed with Mother to look to the future, but secretly I dreamed of returning to the past.”

“I was sick of it. Sick of hearing the phrase German Only. Could we really turn our backs on innocent homeless children? They were victims, not soldiers.”

“I moved from body to body, treating blisters, wounds, frostbite. But I had no treatment for what plagued people most the most. Fear.”

“Joana Vilkas, your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea.”

“Survival had its price: guilt.”

“What a group we were. A pregnant girl in love, a kindly shoemaker, an orphan boy, a blind girl, and a giantess who complained that everyone was in her way when she herself took up the most room. And me, a lonely girl who missed her family and begged for a second chance.”

“Joana’s freedom had cost me mine.”

“Everything was filthy. Especially my conscience.”

“I thought of the countless refugees trekking toward freedom. How many millions of people had lost their home and family during the war?”