Hank Bracker Quotes

“I was exhausted and had to rely on Herr Schreiner to help me and knew in my soul that God had sent him to my aid. As tired as I was, I couldn’t have handled my luggage alone. Finally another train did pull into the station but in stark contrast to the empty platform we were standing on, the train was completely full of people. Although he wasn’t that big of a man, Herr Schreiner pushed my suitcases up the two steps into the railway car, and I climbed up behind them. As the train left the station, he hung onto the two entrance handles right behind me and I pushed for space, trying to make enough room for him to get into the carriage. With every surge of the train I expected him to lose his grip but with what I am certain was superhuman strength, he hung on as the train picked up speed. Several of the people made snide remarks but I turned a deaf ear to this and pushed as hard as I could, so that he could also get in. With the help of another man pulling on his coat, Herr Schreiner finally managed to squeeze in far enough so that we could close the door behind him. Once safely on the train, someone from his school in Mannheim recognized him. Herr Schreiner had been a very popular, much admired school principal and seeing how tired and bedraggled we now looked, the passenger offered us his window seats and helped to make room so that we could store our suitcases in the luggage rack above our heads. The train didn’t make any more stops and continued east crossing the Rhine River Bridge, which miraculously was still there. I couldn’t believe that everything had come together as well as it had, and that I was on my way back to Überlingen and my children.”

“He goes directly to the ballroom, making his way to the center of the dance floor. He takes Celia’s arm, spinning her away from Herr Thiessen.Marco pulls her to him in an emerald embrace, so close that no one distinction remains between where his suite ends and her gown begins. To Celia there is suddenly no one else in the room as he holds her in his arms. But before she can vocalize her surprise, his lips close over hers and she is lost in wordless bliss. Marco kisses her as though they are the only two people in the world. The air swirls in a tempest around them, blowing open the glass doors to the garden with a tangle of billowing curtains. Every eye in the ballroom turns in their direction. And then he releases her and walks away. By the time Marco leaves the room, almost everyone has forgotten the incident entirely. It is replaced by a momentary confusion that is blamed on the heat or the excessive amounts of champagne. Herr Thiessen cannot recall why Celia has suddenly stopped dancing, or when her gown has shifted to its current deep green. “Is something wrong?” he asks, when he realizes that she is trembling.”

“Live free, dream loud, be inspired, find your power.”

“...if that energy could have been channelled into anything more than noise, waste and pain it would have lighted up Indochina for a thousand years.”

“Sometimes life holds more than people allow themselves to see. Such individuals may continue to live as though they are blind for eternities before realizing they were merely clamping their eyes shut.”

“Do you smoke, Herr Cabal?""Only to be antisocial," replied Cabal, making no move.”

“That's basically the mantra of Herr Silverman's teaching - think for yourself and do what's right for you, but let others do the same.”

“You Englishmen,’ said Herr Wurter. ‘You are all the same. Wherever you are you behave as if you were at home and your word was law.”

“I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death.”

“Some people think 1963's a long time ago; when a dead American in the jungle was an event, a grim thrilling novelty. It was spookwar then, adventure; not exactly soldiers, not even advisors yet, but Irregulars, working in remote places with little direct authority, acting out their fantasies with more freedom than most men ever know.”