Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?โ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. โWhat irony?โ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. โThat I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.
John BoyneI can't bear to be on a train without a book", she announced. " It's a form of self-defence in a way" .
John BoyneI don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay. But when I found the right story, I saw it as an opportunity to write about being a teenager and being gay. Most people, whether you're gay or straight or whatever, have experienced that relationship where one person is much more interested than the other.
John BoyneToday people can see and protest all the different interests that want war to happen, the people it financially benefits. The First World War wasn't fought for that reason. The Second World War wasn't fought for that reason. Your entire country and way of life could be overtaken.
John BoyneThe first thing he noticed was how quiet it was. This was nothing like the kind of quiet he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. When that happened, there were always strange, unidentifiable sounds seeping into his room from the tiny gaps where the windowpanes weren't sealed together correctly. At those moments he could always tell there was life outside, even if all that life was fast asleep. It was a silence that wasn't silence at all.
John Boyne