“Benita set the letter down. Connie - her dear Connie, whom she had never even said good-bye to. Whom she had hated - really hated- for so long. But he had always been strong. He had lived his life on a plane of grand ideals and all-encompassing rights and wrongs. His view had been much longer than the trappings of his own life. And she had been the little mouse who could see no farther than her own nose, stumbling over roots and stones, oblivious to the oncoming storm.” LoveLifeIndividualityCompanion Book:The Women in the Castle Source: The Women in the Castle
“He is against politics in general and longs for the restitution of the monarchy. They have seen nothing but rioting and inflation in the five years since Wilhelm II abdicated. And Ania knows not to mention the Communists. Her father has not recovered from the shock of their brief takeover of Bavaria, which, for a few weeks in 1919, became the Bavarian Soviet Republic. If he begins on the subject, no one will hear of anything else for days. For Doktor Fortzmann all was better under the kaiser.” GermanyCommunistNaziAuthoritarianismAutocracyThird ReichKaiserMonarchist Book:The Women in the Castle Source: The Women in the Castle
“For so long Marianne and Albrecht and many of their friends had known Hitler was a lunatic, a leader whose lowbrow appeal to people‘s most selfish, self-pitying emotions and ignorance was an embarrassment for their country. They had watched him make a masterwork of scapegoating Jews for Germany’s fall from power and persuade his followers that enlightenment, humanity, and tolerance were weaknesses — “Jewish” ideas that led to defeat. They had wrung their hands over his dangerous conflations, his fervor, and his lack of humanity.” Timely Book:The Women in the Castle Source: The Women in the Castle
“I want to say," she begins again, "I want to say that I have not always tried hard enough to know. That this 'moral compass' Claire talks about may not have been as helpful in my own personal life as it was in the wider political context. Sometimes it is easier to see clearly from a distance. And what is up close -- what is up close" -- she falters -- " is harder to make out." In the audience someone coughs. "There is so much gray between the black and the white ... and this is where most of us live.” Gray Area Book:The Women in the Castle Source: The Women in the Castle
“You are not responsible for your parents' mistakes." The words emerged from her mouth without forethought, inspired by the young man's miserable face. But were they true? Hadn't she taught her own children to accept their father's heroism as part of their inheritance? So wouldn't this also be true in the reverse?” Mistakes Book:The Women in the Castle Source: The Women in the Castle