“This is the strange undoing of a collection, of a house and of a family. It is the moment of fissure when grand things are taken and when family objects, known and handled and loved, become stuff.” — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“I do not know where Viktor and Rudolf were taken. I cannot find the records. I never Elisabeth or Iggie. It is possible that… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“And I'm not entitled to nostalgia about all that lost wealth and glamour from a century ago. And I am not interested in thin.… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“And someone turns out the lights in the library, as if being in the dark will make them invisible, but the noise reaches into… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“Does assimilation mean that they never came up against naked prejudice? Does it mean that you understood where the limits of your social world… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“The house wasn't theirs anymore. It was full of people, some in uniforms and some in suits. People counting rooms, making lists of objects… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“It makes me wonder what belonging to a place means. Charles died a Russian in Paris. Viktor called it wrong and was a Russian… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“There is something about that burning of all those letters that gives me pause: why should everything be made clear and be brought into… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“He stands with his hands in his pockets, well-dressed and self-assured, with his life before him and a plush armchair behind him.” — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“You just hope, if you make things as I do, that they can make their way in the world and have some longevity.” — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“Stories and objects share something, a patina...Perhaps patina is a process of rubbing back so that the essential is revealed...But it also seems additive,… — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“Kövecses radiated the sense of self-sufficiency that comes about when there are lots of children in a big house.” — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
“The vitrines exist so that you can see objects, but not touch them: they frame things, suspend them, tantalise through distance.” — Edmund de Waal Copy Share Image
