The Striped Pajamas Quotes

What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.

...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.

Don't make it worse by thinking it's more painful than it actually is.

Bruno: We're not supposed to be friends, you and me. We're meant to be enemies. Did you know that?

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

Their lost voices Must continue to be heard.

The thing about exploring is that you have to know whether the thing you've found is worth finding. Some things are just sitting there, minding their own business, waiting to be discovered. Like America. And other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of the cupboard.

. . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.

In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.

Heil Hitler," he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, "Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.

Well you've been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we're all in the same boat. And it's leaking.

Very slowly he turned his head back to look at Shmuel, who wasn't crying anymore, merely staring at the floor and looking as if he was trying to convince his soul not to live inside his tiny body anymore, but to slip away and sail to the door and rise up into the sky, gliding through the clouds until it was very far away.'' -The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day? Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away. Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away.

And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.

You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life.

He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.

It reminds me of how grandmother always had the right costume for me to wear. You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be.

And then the room went very dark and somehow, despite the chaos 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 it go.

We don't have the luxury of thinking ... Some people make all the decisions for us

Those people... well, they're not people at all, Bruno

The people I see from my window. In the huts, in the distance. They're all dressed the same.' 'Ah, those people,' said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. 'Those people...well, they're not people at all, Bruno.' Bruno frowned. 'They're not?' he asked, unsure what Father meant by that.

He suddenly became convinced that if he didn’t do something sensible, something to put his mind to some use, then before he knew it he would be wondering round the streets having fights with himself and inviting domestic animals to social occasions too.

—Tú eres mi mejor amigo —dijo—. Mi mejor amigo para toda la vida.

Can I ask you something? He added after a moment. 'yes,' said Shmuel. Bruno thought about it. He wanted to phrase the question just right. 'why are there so many people on that side of the fence?' He asked. 'And what are you all doing there?

He decided to talk to the Hopeless Case

Bruno opened his eyes in wonder at the things he saw. In his imagination he had tough that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived there would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. As it turned out, all the things he thought might be there-wern't.'' -The boy in the striped Pajamas

It's so unfair, I don't see whij I have to be stuck over here on this side of the fence where there's no one to talk to and no one to play with and you get to have dozens of friends are probably playing for hours every day, I'll have to speak to Father about it.

Of course all this happened a long time ago. And nothing like that could happen again, not in this day and age.

Pavel is not a doctor any more, Bruno' said Maria quietly. 'But he was. In another life. Before he came here

Both boys stayed very quiet for a few minutes, neither one wanting to say anything he might regret.

It's the countryside. Perhaps this is our holiday home.

Other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of a cupboard.

He knew that sometimes people who were sad didn't want to be asked about it; sometimes they'd offer the information themselves and sometimes they wouldn't stop talking about it for months on end, but on this occasion Bruno thought that he should wait before saying anything.

A home is not a building or a street or a city or something so artificial as bricks and mortar. A home is where one's family is...

La niñez se mide a través de sonidos, olores y suspiros, antes de que aparezca la sombra obscura de la razón. (John Betjeman)

And shortly after that the blob became a figure. And then, as Bruno got even closer, he saw that the thing was neither a dot nor a speck nor a blob nor a figure, but a person.

In his imagination he had thought that all the huts were full of happy families, some of whom sat outside on rocking chairs in the evening and told stories about how things were so much better when they were children and they'd had respect for their elders, not like the children nowadays. He thought that all the boys and girls who lived here would be in different groups, playing tennis or football, skipping and drawing out squares for hopscotch on the ground. He had thought that there would be a shop in the centre, and maybe a small café like the ones he had known in Berlin; he had wondered whether there would be a fruit and vegetable stalls. As it turned out, all the things that he thought might be there - weren't.

When I make mistakes I get punished,' insisted Bruno, irritated by the fact that the rules that always applied to children never seemed to apply to grown-ups at all (despite the fact that they were the ones ho enforced them).

Fences such as the one at the heart of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear. But whatever reaction you have to this story, I hope that the voices of Bruno and Shmuel will continue to resonate with you as they have with me. Their lost voices must continue to be heard; their untold stories must continue to be recounted. For they represent the ones who didn't live to tell their stories themselves.

When you sit down with a book, you are separating yourself out of your world for a few hours and getting lost in the story.

Just because someone looks sky at night, doesn`t mean it is astronaut.

Answer me!'Shouted Lieutenant Kotler. 'Did you steal something from that fridge?' 'No, sir. He gave it to me,'said Shmuel, tears welling up in his eyes as he throw a sideways glance at Bruno. 'He's my friend,'he added.

Father laughed, which upset Bruno even more; there was nothing that made him more angry than when a grown-up laughed at him for not knowing something, especially when he was trying to find out the answer by asking questions.

15 בנובמבר 2014 “The Dot That Became a Speck That Became a Blob That Became a Figure That Became a Boy” פילוסופיה.מרגשת.על.גימוד.האחר.שהופכת.לראות.את.האחר.כבן.אדם Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks. , ספר נהדר אשמור עליו, כמו אוצר יקר. אדפדף לאט בעדינות, כשידי נקיות ובזהירות. אשמור עליו שלא יקרע, שלא יקרה לו שום דבר רע. אכבד את הספר, עליו לא אצייר, הספר לי חבר.

La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia.

From the introduction "After all, the great joy of literature, as opposed to politics or religion, is that it embraces differing opinions, it encourages debate, it allows us to have heated conversations with our closes friends and dearest loved ones. And through it all, no one gets hurt, no one gets taken away from their homes, and no one gets killed.

Hay cosas que sencillamente están ahí, sin molestar a nadie, esperando a que las descubran.

Un hogar no es un edificio, ni una calle ni una ciudad; no tiene nada que ver con cosas tan materiales como los ladrillos y el cemento. Un hogar es donde está tu familia, ¿entiendes?

15 בנובמבר 2014 “be given an explanation for why they had all been forced to leave their comfortable home and come to this terrible place, which must have been the greatest wrong ever committed to him in his short life.” חשיבה.אגוצנטרית.של.ברונו Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks. לתי ספר, ספר נהדר אשמור עליו, כמו אוצר יקר. אדפדף לאט בעדינות, כשידי נקיות ובזהירות. אשמור עליו שלא יקרע, שלא יקרה לו שום דבר רע. אכבד את הספר, עליו לא אצייר, הספר לי חבר.

He's crazy," Bruno said, twirling a finger in circles around the side of his head and whistling to indicate just how crazy he thought he was. "He went up to a cat on the street the other day and invited her over for afternoon tea." "What did the cat say?" asked Gretel, who was making a sandwich in the corner of the kitchen. "Nothing." explained Bruno. "It was a cat.

Însă, în timp ce reflectă astfel, picioarele îl duseră pas cu pas din ce în ce mai aproape de punctul din depărtare, care între timp devenise o pată, apoi se transformă într-un strop. Și în curând după aceea, stropul deveni o siluetă. După care, când Bruno se apropie și mai mult, văzu că nu era nici punct, nici pată, nici strop, nici siluetă, ci o făptură. De fapt, era un băiat.

You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you're pretending to be.

Natuurlijk gebeurde dit allemaal heel lang geleden en kan zoiets nu niet meer gebeuren. Niet in onze tijd.

Que uno contemple el cielo por la noche no lo convierte en astrónomo.

14 בנובמבר 2014 “Out-With” Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks.

215 בנובמבר 2014 “Grandmother never seemed old in comparison to the other boys’ grandmothers.” נחמד Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks.

wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

You can hurt me if you like," I whispered, closing my eyes, thinking that he might slap me hard, drive his fist into my stomach, break my nose. "Why would you want that?" he asked, his tone betraying an innocence that believed his beauty. "So I'll know that I'm alive.

Você é o meu melhor amigo, Shmuel. Meu melhor amigo para a vida toda.

Bruno: Me parece que no puedo dejarlo. Me parece que no quiero.

It was almost (Shmuel thought) as if they were all exactly the same really.

And that’s the end of the story about Bruno and his family. Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age.

Ah those people", said Father, nodding his head smiling slightly. "Those people...well, they are not people at all, Bruno".

By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.

Waarom zou vader op zo'n nare plek willen werken met al die buren? Het slaat nergens op.

We hadden de Furie nooit te eten moeten vragen,' zei ze. 'Sommige mensen moeten zo nodig hogerop komen.

Heil Hitler,' zei hij, wat, voor zover hij wist, een andere manier was om te zeggen 'Tot ziens en een prettige dag verder'.

Todo esto, por supuesto, pasó hace mucho, mucho tiempo, y nunca podría volver a pasar nada parecido. Hoy en día, no.

True horror is all the more potent for being implicit.

Não”, disse Bruno rapidamente, pois sempre tentava ser honesto e sabia que, se hesitasse mesmo que por um momento, não teria mais coragem de dizer o que pensava.

Não torne as coisas piores, pensando que dói mais do que você realmente está sentindo.

Algumas coisas estão lá, cuidando da própria vida, esperando para serem descobertas. Como a América. Outras coisas é melhor que deixemos em paz. Como um rato morto no fundo do armário.

14 בנובמבר 2014 “him now, despite the fact that he was, as Gretel had pointed out, no more than a teenager himself.” זה אומר שהחילים היו צעירים Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks. פר, ספר נהדר אשמור עליו, כמו אוצר יקר. אדפדף לאט בעדינות, כשידי נקיות ובזהירות. אשמור עליו שלא יקרע, שלא יקרה לו שום דבר רע. אכבד את הספר, עליו לא אצייר, הספר לי חבר.

O menino apenas olhava para o chão, dando a impressão de que tentava convencer sua alma a não mais habitar o pequeno corpo e a fugir pela janela e voar bem alto até o céu, indo o mais longe possível.

E então o cômodo ficou escuro e de alguma maneira, apesar do caos que se seguiu, Bruno percebeu que ainda estava segurando a mão de Shmuel entre as suas e nada no mundo o teria convencido a soltá-la.

Do I need to check up on you guys later? You know the rules.No sleeping in opposite-sex rooms." My face flames,and St. Clair's cheeks grow blotchy. It's true.It's a rule. One that my brain-my rule-loving, rule-abiding brain-conveniently blocked last night. It's also one notoriously ignored by the staff. "No,Nate," we say. He shakes his shaved head and goes back in his apartment. But the door opens quickly again,and a handful of something is thrown at us before it's slammed back shut. Condoms.Oh my God, how humiliating. St. Clair's entire face is now bright red as he picks the tiny silver squares off the floor and stuffs them into his coat pockets. We don't speak,don't even look at each other,as we climb the stairs to my floor. My pulse quickens with each step.Will he follow me to my room,or has Nate ruined any chance of that? We reach the landing,and St. Clair scratches his head. "Er..." "So..." "I'm going to get dressed for bed. Is that all right?" His voice is serious,and he watches my reaction carefully. "Yeah.Me too.I'm going to...get ready for bed,too." "See you in a minute?" I swell with relief. "Up there or down here?" "Trust me,you don't want to sleep in my bed." He laughs,and I have to turn my face away,because I do,holy crap do I ever. But I know what he means.It's true my bed is cleaner. I hurry to my room and throw on the strawberry pajamas and an Atlanta Film Festival shirt. It's not like I plan on seducing him. Like I'd even know how. St. Clair knocks a few minutes later, and he's wearing his white bottoms with the blue stripes again and a black T-shirt with a logo I recognize as the French band he was listening to earlier. I'm having trouble breathing. "Room service," he says. My mind goes...blank. "Ha ha," I say weakly. He smiles and turns off the light. We climb into bed,and it's absolutely positively completely awkward. As usual. I roll over to my edge of the bed. Both of us are stiff and straight, careful not to touch the other person. I must be a masochist to keep putting myself in these situations. I need help. I need to see a shrink or be locked in a padded cell or straitjacketed or something. After what feels like an eternity,St. Clair exhales loudly and shifts. His leg bumps into mine, and I flinch. "Sorry," he says. "It's okay." "..." "..." "Anna?" "Yeah?" "Thanks for letting me sleep here again. Last night..." The pressure inside my chest is torturous. What? What what what? "I haven't slept that well in ages." The room is silent.After a moment, I roll back over. I slowly, slowly stretch out my leg until my foot brushes his ankle. His intake of breath is sharp. And then I smile,because I know he can't see my expression through the darkness.

E' la storia che ci ha condotto fin qui. Se non fosse per la storia, nessuno di noi oggi sarebbe seduto a questa tavola. Saremmo tranquillamente seduti nella nostra casa di Berlino. Stiamo correggendo la storia, qui.

14 בנובמבר 2014 “Out-With?’ asked Bruno. ‘What’s an Out-With?’ ‘It’s not an Out-With, Bruno,’ said Gretel with a sigh. ‘It’s just Out-With.’ ‘Well, what’s Out-With then?’ he repeated. ‘Out with what?” עיוות של השם אושוויץ Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks. קיבלתי ספר, ספר נהדר אשמור עליו, כמו אוצר יקר. אדפדף לאט בעדינות, כשידי נקיות ובזהירות. אשמור עליו שלא יקרע, שלא יקרה לו שום דבר רע. אכבד את הספר, עליו לא אצייר, הספר לי חבר.

You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you’re pretending to be, she always told me. I suppose that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? Pretending to be a person from the other side of the fence.’ ‘A Jew, you mean,’ said Shmuel. ‘Yes,’ said Bruno,

What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms? Of course sometimes the two groups mixed. He’d often seen the people from his side of the fence on the other side of the fence, and when he watched it was clear that they were in charge. The pajama people all jumped to attention whenever the soldiers approached and sometimes they fell to the ground and sometimes they didn’t even get up and had to be carried away instead.

214 בנובמבר 2014 “Well, I don’t like the way we have to turn all the lights off at night now,’ he admitted. ‘Everyone has to do that,’ said Mother” עוד לפני המלחמה Notes From: John Boyne. “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” iBooks. קיבלתי ספר, ספר נהדר אשמור עליו, כמו אוצר יקר. אדפדף לאט בעדינות, כשידי נקיות ובזהירות. אשמור עליו שלא יקרע, שלא יקרה לו שום דבר רע. אכבד את הספר, עליו לא אצייר, הספר לי חבר. לקרוא, לא לקרוע, לקרוא, כן לקרוא! ללמוד ולדעת, את הסוד שבו, סיפור, עוד סיפור לגמרי ברור: אני אוהב לקרוא.

Pretty,” he said. “The wine?” “You.” I was wearing a white T-shirt and striped pajama bottoms with a drawstring waist. My feet were bare and my hair was down and disorderly. “This would be perfect if we were in my apartment and not yours, and you were spending the night,” he said.

He didn’t know what everyone looked so frightened about – after all, marching wasn’t such a terrible thing – and he wanted to whisper to them that everything was all right, that Father was the Commandant, and if this was the kind of thing that he wanted the people to do then it must be all right.

We’ll meet at the same time tomorrow,’ said Shmuel. ‘Don’t be late this time,’ said Bruno, standing up and dusting himself down. ‘And don’t forget the striped pajamas.’ Both boys went home in high spirits that afternoon. Bruno imagined a great adventure ahead and finally an opportunity to see what was really on the other side of the fence before he went back to Berlin – not to mention getting in a little serious exploration as well – and Shmuel saw a chance to get someone to help him in the search for his papa. All in all, it seemed like a very sensible plan and a good way to say goodbye.

One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family’s maid – who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet – standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he’d hidden

Apparently, Christmas was a big holiday for the Wolcotts. On Christmas Eve, three generations spent the night at the Adirondack camp, and while they attended the midnight service, Mrs. Wolcott would put a pair of matching pajamas on every pillow. So in the morning, they all came down to the freshly cut spruce in matching red and white stripes or a tartan plaid.

Shmuel reached down and lifted the base of the fence, but it only lifted to a certain height and Bruno had no choice but to roll under it, getting his striped pajamas completely covered in mud as he did so. He laughed when he looked down at himself. He had never been so filthy in all his life and it felt wonderful. Shmuel smiled too and the two boys stood awkwardly together for a moment, unaccustomed to being on the same side of the fence.

—Shmuel —dijo, corriendo hacia él y sentándose. Casi lloraba de alivio y de arrepentimiento.—Lo siento mucho,Shmuel. No sé porqué lo hice. Di que me perdonas. —No pasa nada.—dijo Shmuel, mirándolo. Tenía la cara cubierta de cardenales. Bruno se estremeció y por un momento olvidó sus disculpas. —¿Qué te ha pasado? —preguntó, pero no esperó a que Shmuel contestara.—¿Te has caído de la bicicleta? A mí me pasó una vez en Berlín, hace un par de años. Me caí porque iba demasiado rápido y estuve lleno de cardenales varias semanas. ¿Te duele? —Ya no lo noto —dijo Shmuel. —Debe de dolerte. —Ya no noto nada.

Bruno had an urge to give Shmuel a hug, just to let him know how much he liked him and how much he’d enjoyed talking to him over the last year. Shmuel had an urge to give Bruno a hug too, just to thank him for all his many kindnesses, and his gifts of food, and the fact that he was going to help him find Papa. Neither of them did hug each other though, and instead they began the walk away from the fence and towards the camp, a walk that Shmuel had done almost every day for a year now, when he had escaped the eyes of the soldiers and managed to get to that one part of Out-With that didn’t seem to be guarded all the time, a place where he had been lucky enough to meet a friend like Bruno.

And I’m sorry we didn’t really get to play, but when you come to Berlin, that’s what we’ll do. And I’ll introduce you to … Oh, what were their names again?’ he asked himself, frustrated because they were supposed to be his three best friends for life but they had all vanished from his memory now. He couldn’t remember any of their names and he couldn’t picture any of their faces. ‘Actually,’ he said, looking down at Shmuel, ‘it doesn’t matter whether I do or don’t. They’re not my best friends any more anyway.’ He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel’s tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. ‘You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life.

When we got back to Manhattan, Maeve took me to a men’s store and bought me extra underwear, a new shirt, and a pair of pajamas, then she got me a toothbrush at the drugstore next door. That night we went to the Paris Theater and saw Mon Oncle. Maeve said she was in love with Jacques Tati. I was nervous about seeing a movie with subtitles but it turned out that nobody really said anything. After it was finished, we stopped for ice cream then went back to Barnard. Boys of every stripe were expressly forbidden to go past the dorm lobby, but Maeve just explained the situation to the girl at the desk, another friend of hers, and took me upstairs. Leslie, her roommate, had gone home for Easter break and so I slept in her bed. The room was so small we could have easily reached across the empty space and touched fingers.

expected that it would go on to have such a long and varied life. I started with a very simple image of two boys sitting on either side of a fence, talking to each other, and was immediately interested in the journey that would bring them there, the conversations they would have, and the necessary end that I felt their story would reach. Ten years later, the novel not only changed my life but introduced me to people whom I had never expected to encounter. In my travels, I’ve been fortunate to meet survivors of the many death camps that were built around Europe during the early 1940s and to hear their stories firsthand, as well as descendants of the murdered, who have been generous enough to share their memories and grief with me. It’s been a privilege to be present for such moments and to take part in such emotive conversations. There are two things that interest me above all others in young people’s literature, and I’ve returned to them several times in subsequent books: the manner in which war affects and destroys the experience of childhood, which is supposed to be a happy and carefree period, and what it means for a child to be thrust into an adult situation far ahead of time. The heroes of my novels are, like Bruno, always optimistic, resourceful, and a little naïve, and they don’t want an adult to solve their problems for them, even when they’re not always capable of solving them themselves. They’re growing up surrounded by confusion and trying to make sense of it all. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes the chaos overwhelms them. But they’re never defeated. I will always be grateful to those millions of readers who allowed The Boy in the Striped Pajamas into their lives, those who have been moved by the story and, indeed, those who have taken issue with aspects of it and been vocal in their antipathy. After all, the great joy of literature, as opposed to politics or religion, is that it embraces differing opinions, it encourages debate, it allows us to have heated conversations with our closest friends and dearest loved ones. And through it all, no one gets hurt, no one gets taken away from their homes, and no one gets killed. Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Introduction

Building with Its Face Blown Off How suddenly the private is revealed in a bombed-out city, how the blue and white striped wallpaper of a second story bedroom is now exposed to the lightly falling snow as if the room had answered the explosion wearing only its striped pajamas. Some neighbors and soldiers poke around in the rubble below and stare up at the hanging staircase, the portrait of a grandfather, a door dangling from a single hinge. And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed by its uncovered ochre walls, the twisted mess of its plumbing, the sink sinking to its knees, the ripped shower curtain, the torn goldfish trailing bubbles. It's like a dollhouse view as if a child on its knees could reach in and pick up the bureau, straighten a picture. Or it might be a room on a stage in a play with no characters, no dialogue or audience, no beginning, middle, and end– just the broken furniture in the street, a shoe among the cinder blocks, a light snow still falling on a distant steeple, and people crossing a bridge that still stands. And beyong that–crows in a tree, the statue of a leader on a horse, and clouds that look like smoke, and even farther on, in another country on a blanket under a shade tree, a man pouring wine into two glasses and a woman sliding out the wooden pegs of a wicker hamper filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.

The New Dog I. “I’m intensely afraid of almost everything. Grocery bags, potted poinsettias, bunches of uprooted weeds wilting on a hot sidewalk, clothes hangers, deflated rubber balls, being looked in the eye, crutches, an overcoat tossed across the back of a chair (everybody knows empty overcoats house ghosts), children, doorways, music, human hands and the newspaper rustling as my owner, in striped pajamas, drinks coffee and turns its pages. He wants to find out where there’ll be war in the mid-east this week. Afraid even of eating, if someone burps or clinks a glass with a fork, or if my owner turns the kitchen faucet on to wash his hands during my meal I go rigid with fear, my legs buckle, then I slink from the room. I pee copiously if my food bowl is placed on the floor before the other dogs’. I have to be served last or the natural order of things - in which every moment I am about to be sacrificed - (have my heart ripped from my chest by the priest wielding his stone knife or get run out of the pack by snarling, snapping alphas) - the most sacred hierarchy, that fated arrangement, the glue of the universe, will unstick. The evolution will never itself, and life as we know it will subside entirely, until only the simplest animal form remain - jellyfish headless globs of cells, with only microscopic whips for legs and tails. Great swirling arms of gas will arm wrestle for eons to win cosmic dominance. Starless, undifferentiated chaos will reign. II. I alone of little escaped a hell of beating, neglect, and snuffling dumpsters for sustenance before this gullible man adopted me. Now my new owner would like me to walk nicely by his side on a leash (without cowering or pulling) and to lie down on a towel when he asks, regardless of whether he has a piece of bologna in his pocket or not. I’m growing fond of that optimistic young man in spite of myself. If only he would heed my warnings I’d pour out my thoughts to him: When panic strikes you like a squall wind and disaster falls on you like a gale, when you are hunted and scorned, wisdom shouts aloud in the streets: What is consciousness? What is sensation? What is mind? What is pain? What about the sorrows of unwatered houseplants? What indoor cloudburst will slake their thirst? What of my littler brothers and sisters, dead at the hands of dirty two legged brutes? Who’s the ghost in the universe behind its existence, necessary to everything that happens? Is it the pajama-clad man offering a strip of bacon in his frightening hand (who’ll take me to the park to play ball if he ever gets dressed)? Is it his quiet, wet-eyed, egg-frying wife? Dear Lord, Is it me?

Underneath it, I had on full-length striped pajamas paired with fluffy beige slippers.

Tonight the President will bury himself, perhaps, in two volumes Mrs. Lodge has just sent him for review: Gissing’s Charles Dickens, A Critical Study, and The Greek View of Life, by Lowes Dickinson. He will be struck, as he peruses the latter, by interesting parallels between the Periclean attitude toward women and that of present-day Japan, and will make a mental note to write to Mrs. Lodge about it.122 He may also read, with alternate approval and disapproval, two articles on Mormonism in the latest issue of Outlook. A five-thousand-word essay on “The Ancient Irish Sagas” in this month’s Century magazine will not detain him long, since he is himself the author.123 His method of reading periodicals is somewhat unusual: each page, as he comes to the end of it, is torn out and thrown onto the floor.124 When both magazines have been thus reduced to a pile of crumpled paper, Roosevelt will leap from his rocking-chair and march down the corridor. Slowing his pace at the door of the presidential suite, he will tiptoe in, brush the famous teeth with only a moderate amount of noise, and pull on his blue-striped pajamas. Beside his pillow he will deposit a large, precautionary revolver.125 His last act, after turning down the lamp and climbing into bed, will be to unclip his pince-nez and rub the reddened bridge of his nose. Then, there being nothing further to do, Theodore Roosevelt will energetically fall asleep.

You got panties with flowers on them,” Hayley says, as she eyes the hip of my undies. She looks up at her dad. “Can I have some panties with flowers on them?” She pulls her pajama pants down at the waist and shows me hers. “Mine just have stripes.” I pull my shirt down over my hips. “What did I tell you about showing your panties to people?” Paul asks. She rolls her eyes at him. “Friday’s a girl,” she says. I bite back my snort because Paul isn’t laughing. I look at him over my shoulder, his eyes meet mine, and they go hot. And so do I. “I know she’s a girl.” His eyes roam up and down my back. “Most definitely a girl.” “We need to get you some waffles,” Hayley says to Paul. “Because you look hungry.” She says it very matter-of-factly, and I can’t keep from laughing this time. Paul shoots me a look of warning, and I throw my hands up. “What?” I cry. “I can’t help it.

In the reflection I see my shoulder-length curly brown hair. My lime-green pajamas. My striped slippers.