John Boyne

“There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.”

“...Despite the mayhem that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel's hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.”

“He didn't want to play football. He wanted to be told the truth.”

“Oh, I hate him,' she said, and I noticed a flush of colour come into her cheeks and the manner in which the fingers of her left hand dug into her palm, as if she wanted something to take awa...”

“Throughout my teenage years, I read 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens every December. It was a story that never failed to excite me, for as well as being a Dickens enthusiast, I have al...”

“I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or...”