“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is."
― Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See
Here are selected quotes from All the Light We Cannot See that highlight key themes such as war, hope, innocence, and human connection. Each quote reflects how Anthony Doerr uses language to show the contrast between darkness and light, revealing the emotional and symbolic depth of the novel.
| Themes | Quote |
|---|---|
| War FearsPainHorrors | “The Germans, a gardener claims, have sixty thousand troop gliders; they can march for days without eating; they impregnate every school-girl they meet…their uniforms…are made of a special cloth stronger than steel” “They creep into apartments at night. They booby-trap kitchen cupboards, toilet bowls…” “Slavering. Ravenous…The windows go black with blood” “Marie-Laure’s senses feel scrambled. Is that the rumble of airplanes? Is that the smell of smoke? Is someone speaking German?” “Doors soar away from their frames. Bricks transmute into powder. Great distending clouds of chalk and earth and granite spout into the sky. All twelve bombers have already turned and climbed and realigned high above the Channel before roof slates blown into the air finish falling into the streets.” “Heat. Getting hotter. He thinks: We are locked inside a box, and the box has been pitched into the mouth of a volcano.” ‘“Are we dead?” he shouts into the dark, “Have we died?”’ “She tells herself to save the bread, but she is famished and the loaf is getting stale, and before she knows it, she has finished it.” “The very thought of her lips against water – the tip of her nose touching its surface – summons up a biological craving beyond anything she has experienced.” “The artillery screams. The cellar shudders.” “I could eat a whole pig.” He smiles. “I could eat a whole cow.” “The first peach slithers down his throat like rapture. A sunrise in his mouth.” “Other times, the eyes of men who are about to die haunt him, and he kills them all over again. Dead man in Lodz.” “Maybe she smells German. He’ll say You did this to me.” Please. Not in front of my son.” “Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world.” |
| Propaganda | “Is it any wonder, asks the radio, that courage, confidence and optimism in growing measure fill the German people?” “We hope only to work, to work and work and work, to go to glorious work for the country.” “Good evening…or heil Hitler, if you prefer!” “They chide younger children for admiring anything foreign: a British car advertisement, a French picture book.” “He alone is to be thanked for the fact that, for German children, a German life has once again become worth living.” “Fight bravely and die laughing” “Only through the hottest fires, whispers the radio, can purification be achieved. Only through the harshest tests can God’s chosen rise.” “You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is.” [Herr Siedler] “Pflicht. It means duty. Obligation. Every German fulfilling his function.” “You will become like a waterfall, a volley of bullets – you will all surge in the same direction at the same pace toward the same cause. You will forgo comforts; you will live by duty alone. You will eat country and breathe nation.” “They are each a mound of clay, and the potter that is the portly, shiny-faced commandant is throwing four hundred identical pots.” “He says the fuhrer has collected scientists to help him control the weather. He says the fuhrer will develop a rocket that can reach Japan. He says the fuhrer will build a city on the moon.” “Reiner Shicker said something amazing. He said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” “In the end we all come home to the fuhrer. What other home matters?” “We are ordering the evolution of the species. Winnowing out the inferior, the unruly, the chaff. This is the great project of the Reich, the greatest project human beings have ever embarked upon.” |
| Racism | “They said they wouldn’t let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren’t we half-breeds too? [Jutta] “White circles represent pure German blood. Circles with black indicate the proportion of foreign blood.” “On the breast of her coat, a mustard-yellow star has been carefully stitched” |
| Love of Learning | “Time slows. The attic disappears. Jutta disappears. Has anyone ever spoken so intimately about the very things Werner is most curious about?” “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” “Light, electricity, ether. Space, time, mass. Heinrich Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics. Heissmeyer’s famous schools. Code breaking, rocket propulsion, all the latest.” “She reads the first half of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea so many times, she practically memorizes it.” “He keeps any doubts at bay by memorizing lyrics or the routes to classrooms, by holding before his eyes a vision of the technical sciences laboratory: nine tables, thirty stools; coils, variable capacitors, amplifiers, batteries, soldering irons locked away in those gleaming cabinets.” “They visit Scotland, New York City, Santiago. More than once they put on winter coats and visit the moon.” “Frederick…brings down a huge book…”Here”. His voice glows;his eyes glow.” “He thinks of the Frenchman’s radio program…doesn’t he recognize the thrill in Frederick’s voice?” “Werner can still see Frederick kneeling at his window, nose to the glass. Little gray bird hopping about in the boughs.” “And the books! The lower floors are blanketed with them…What it would be like to spend ten years in this tall narrow house, shuttered from the world, studying its secrets and reading its volumes…” “She did not understand its attraction but knew that her son would love it” |
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