orphans Quotes

Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred.

“So in the summer time they had all set out for America. At the last moment there joined them Marija Berczynskas, who was a cousin of Ona’s. Marija was an orphan, and had worked since childhood for a rich farmer of Vilna, who beat her regularly. It was only at the age of twenty that it had occurred to Marija to try her strength, when she had risen up and nearly murdered the man, and then come away.”

“I did what I do every night before I go to sleep, I checked to make sure everything was there. The way there are more and more kids coming into the Home every day, I had to make sure no one had run off with any of my things.”

″‘See,’ I said, ‘you don’t have any family and neither do I. I’ve got the preacher, of course. But I don’t have a mama. I mean I have one, but I don’t know where she is. She left when I was three years old. I can’t hardly remember her. And I bet you don’t remember your mama much either. So we’re almost like orphans.‘”

“I joined the army really because of the loss of my family and starvation. I wanted to avenge the deaths of my family. I also had to get some food to survive, and the only way to do that was to be part of the army. It was not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it.”

“I have no father nor mother; I am alone in the world. No one cares for Cochise; that is why I do not care to live, and wish the rocks to fall on me and cover me up. If I had a father and mother like you, I would be with them and they with me”

“It’s a strange thing, becoming an orphan at sixteen. To lose your family long before you’ve had time to create your own to replace it. It’s a very specific sort of loneliness.”

“I ain’t kin to nobody in this world...I don’t want to be. I won’t be.”

“I went down afterwards into Yorkshire; but my Father was dead, and my Mother, and all the Family extinct, except that I found two Sisters, and two of the Children of one of my Brothers; and as I had been long ago given over for dead, there had been no Provision made for me;”

“Her father, a mason, had died in a fall from some scaffolding. Then her mother died, her sisters scattered, and a farmer took her in and employed her, small as she was, to look after the cows in the fields. She would shiver in her rags, drink pond water lying flat on her stomach, and be beaten for the slightest reason, and was finally thrown out over a theft of thirty sols which she had not committed.”

Unbeknowest to them they have been put into boarding schools not just because they are orphans, but because their parents were part of a rebellion.

“The slave girl didn’t have a name; she didn’t know how old she was. She had lived at Huangling Palace since her parents had sold her to Lan when she was a small child.”

“As the priest chanted the Latin prayers, whose meaning I barely understood, I knelt by his side and knew that God had taken away the one person I could claim as my own. But His will be done.”

″‘There’s no father. You’re alone. You must do without him. You must be strong.”

“An orphans curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! How more horrible that that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!”

“An orphans curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! How more horrible that that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!”

“Other children had been there a long time and knew they would never leave. They called themselves “lifers”. Beth wondered if she was a lifer.”

“Hari was shocked by the story but he did not like to be thought of as another orphan in Jagu’s care. He did have parents after all—even if one was a drunkard and the other an invalid—and a home, a proper home, not just a place on a railway platform.”

“You’re no saint, because saints are stupid! You’re stupid! You’re so stupid that you can’t think ahead! You think that sacrificing your life for a bunch of scabby, snot-nosed orphans is going to save them from slavery? You’re out of your mind!”

″...she knew in her heart that nature has a preference for a particular order: parents die, then children die. But it was a harsh design, offering little relief from pain, for being in accord with it means that the fortunate find themselves orphaned.”

The girls (in Halinka’s room) are 12 (well they’re in two grades so I’d guess different ages by at least a year) but they did seem a bit younger to me. Maybe 10? Maybe 11? Given their backgrounds and circumstances and given that this is historical fiction and not contemporary, I guess they could seem a bit younger to me than they are.

Halinka has been put in the home after being removed from her mother who was neglectful, Halinka also suffered physical abuse but it is not clear if this was from her mother or her mother’s boyfriends.

As you would expect from children who have suffered loss and abuse, there is bullying, fighting and physical violence.

“Christina wished they were girls. But she did not argue; she was used to being moved about, following an exchange of letters, or a family discussion. It never occurred to anybody that she should ever be consulted as to what was best for her. It never occurred to Christina, either, that she should.”

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s true, Amaryllis. Your father was killed. It happened in a timber accident, in New Guinea. It’s dangerous work, timber milling. I want you to know you have my deepest sympathy. I’ll be happy to do all I can for you. As a friend, you know, my dear, not just as a solicitor.”

Jenny lives in an orphanage, surrounded by children who get to visit their ‘Sunday Foster Families’ while she stays back on her own. Until one day, a woman comes to be Jenny’s ‘Sunday Mommy,’ and Jenny learns to love and be loved by Laura.

Jenny is an orphan, and she’s one of the only children who never gets picked to go out with a foster mom and dad on Sunday.

Ten-year-old Jenny’s new foster mother doesn’t live up to her expectations until Jenny discovers that there are more important things in life than lavish gifts and fancy homes.

“But now I don’t have to be jealous anymore. Because now I’ve got Sunday Forster Parents too! I mean, they’re not parents, it’a just a lady, but still! Yesterday, on Sunday afternoon, Sister Frances sent this stupid kid named Donny to get me. Donny is much littler than me.”

“Here’s how it works: Almost all of us at the Home have Sunday Foster Parents. These are parents who want to take care of a child on Sundays, and so they come to the Home and pick one. Then that child is called a Sunday Foster Child and is allowed to go out with them every Sunday, and longer at Christmas and Easter. It’s really great!”

“Laura Fielder’s hair is so short she looks just like a boy; she doesn’t give Jenny lavish presents; she doesn’t live in a fancy house. But gradually Jenny learns that Laura has more to give than just presents and cookies.”

“You must find a place of us. Here you sit and all you say is it can’t be helped. But it’s got to be helped. I won’t live somewhere else than Peter.”

“Foundling (noun) also wastrel. Stray people, usually children, found without a home or shelter on the streets of cities or even, amazingly, wandering exposed in the wilds. The usual destination for such orphaned children are workhouses, mills or mines, although a fortunate few may find their way to a foundlingery. Such a place can care for a small number of foundlings and wastrels, fitting them for a more productive life and sparing them the agonies of harder labor.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you forgive me, Mrs. Lynde.”

“Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a heart-rending scream and a flood of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s guest... one may say aristocratic....”