BlogEnglish50 Jojo Rabbit Quotes Sorted by Themes and Techniques for Your Essay 🗣️

50 Jojo Rabbit Quotes Sorted by Themes and Techniques for Your Essay 🗣️

Uniform - Jojo Rabbit Quotes

Need a quick list of key Jojo Rabbit quotes with themes, techniques, and analysis to use for your essay? You’re in the right place. 

As someone who scored Band 6 results in all 4 HSC English units and has now tutored the subject for 200+ hours, I’ve been able to master the art of breaking down a quote and finding the key details. In this article, I’ll help you do the same!

How many quotes should I have in my Jojo Rabbit essay? 
1. Life
2. Love
3. War and Propaganda
4. Rilke Quotes
5. Elsa Quotes
6. Dance
7. Rosie Quotes

🤔 How many quotes should I have in my Jojo Rabbit essay? 

As Jojo Rabbit is a film, you need to leave some space in your essay to talk about cinematic devices in addition to quotes – these are the features specific to the medium of film such as camera angles, lighting and diegetic or non-diegetic music. 

To maintain a good balance in your analysis, I’d recommend a 50/50 split between quotes and cinematic devices or two cinematic devices for every quote. 

But, ultimately, you should be choosing the aspects of the film that most effectively support your argument in answering your essay question.

Looking to find out more about the context and background of Jojo Rabbit quotes? 🔎 

Whether you need to analyse techniques or want feedback on your writing, our AI English tutor Artie can help you out in 4 easy steps:

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  1. Go to the Art of Smart website and make an account.
  2. Log in and select one of the tools from the sidebar such as ‘explore context’ or ‘identify techniques.’
  3. Follow Artie’s prompts to get started.
  4. Use the feedback to improve your understanding and analysis of the text!

Jojo Rabbit Quotes About Life

#1: “You’ve lived more lifetimes than most.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Idiom
  • Analysis: Rosie uses an idiom to convey how the profound suffering Elsa experienced in being persecuted as a Jew in Nazi Germany forced her to become more mature and world-weary than a typical teenager.

#2: “I haven’t lived at all. And if this is living, this hole in the wall and all this darkness, then what will death be like?”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Rhetorical question, imagery
  • Analysis: Elsa’s rhetorical question emphasises her despair by suggesting that her current existence is already devoid of vitality. Her use of imagery further evokes a sense of confinement, reinforcing how her life has been stripped of meaning and companionship.

#3: “You’re being challenged; they say you can’t live, that you won’t live. If that comes true then they win.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Epistrophe, symbolism
  • Analysis: The epistrophe of “live” emphasises the relentless oppression Elsa faces in being a Jewish woman during the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Nazi Germany, reframing her mere survival as a symbol of resistance against this tyrannical system.

#4: “All I’m saying is that life is a gift and therefore we must celebrate it, hold on to it.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Metaphor, epistrophe
  • Analysis: By describing life as a “gift” and urging Jojo to “celebrate” and “hold on to it,” Rosie metaphorically frames life as both fragile and worth cherishing, reinforcing her perspective that joy is an act of defiance against a fascist regime that promotes hatred and fear.

#5: “You’ll go to Morocco, take up lovers and make them suffer, look a tiger in the eye and learn to trust without fear. That’s what it is to be a woman.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Imagery, metaphor, contrast
  • Analysis: The escalating imagery of adventure and danger culminates in “trust without fear,” positioning it as the most formidable challenge despite the hyperbolic feats before it. This contrast suggests that, for a woman, vulnerability is the greatest risk in a world where trust can be weaponised against her.

#6: “They didn’t get you yesterday, or today. Make tomorrow the same. Tomorrow must be the same.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Repetition
  • Analysis: Rosie’s repetition of “tomorrow” emphasises the importance of perseverance  in the face of constant danger, serving as an urgent plea to Elsa to maintain hope and resilience and reinforcing the idea that survival is a daily, ongoing act of defiance.

#7: “You should be having fun, climbing trees, and then falling out of those trees.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Imagery, contrast
  • Analysis: This imagery evokes a sense of youthful freedom and innocence that contrasts the harsh, militaristic reality Jojo is immersed in, highlighting what he should be experiencing as part of a normal childhood.

#8: “She died trying to save lives. That is the greatest honour any person can achieve.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Juxtaposition
  • Analysis: Elsa contrasts the brutality of Rosie’s death with the moral dignity of her actions, suggesting that the value of her life lies in her commitment to helping others, despite the tragedy surrounding her passing.

Quotes on Love 

#9: “Jojo: And do you love anyone else?/ Rosie: Apart from you and Papa and Inga? Myself obviously. Pff.”

  • Characters: Jojo, Rosie
  • Technique: Humour, polysyndeton, dialogue, onomatopoeia

#10: “You’ll meet someone and spend your days dreaming of the moment you can hold her in your arms again. That’s love.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Imagery

#11: “These banks used to be full of lovers. There’d be singing, dancing, romance.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Listing, asyndeton

#12: “Love is the strongest thing in the world.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Metaphor

#13: “You’ll know it when it happens. You’ll feel it. A pain.”

  •   Character: Rosie
  •   Technique: Truncated sentence, anaphora

#14: “Like butterflies. It’s like you’re full of butterflies.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Simile, idiom, motif

#15: “Well, the thing is… I love you. I know you think of me as a younger brother and you’re too old anyway but–  Man, it’s hot in here.”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Humour

War and Propaganda Quotes

#16: “And even though it would appear our country’s on the back foot and that there really isn’t much hope us of winning this war, apparently we’re doing just fine.”

  • Character: Klenzendorf
  • Technique: Comedic understatement, idiom

#17: “It has been scientifically proven that we Aryans are 1000 times more advanced and civilised than any other race.”

  • Character: Fraulein Rahm
  • Technique: Hyperbole

#18: “Great idea! I give you full permission to send this ten-year-old child off to war. Someone give this guy a gun!”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Sarcasm, exclamation

#19: “Also, you could hand out some of this propaganda and deliver these conscriptions.”

  • Character: Fraulein Rahm
  • Technique: Comedic understatement

#20: “And my papa, they say he makes desserts instead of fighting. But I know he’s still fighting, for you, for me, and for Germany.”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Pun, anaphora

#21: “I won’t let my brain be bossed around by her, mein Führer.”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Irony, synecdoche

#22: “He’s a fanatic. It took him three weeks to get over the fact his grandfather wasn’t blonde.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Hyperbole, humour

#23: “How do you love a son like this, a kid who believes the things he does? In the end, you have no choice.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Hypophora

#24: “I love my country. It’s war I hate.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Juxtaposition, epistrophe

#25: “So, I’d like you to draw a picture of where Jews live. A typical hive; where you all sleep, eat, and where the Queen Jew lays the eggs.”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Zoomorphism, incongruity

#26: “Jojo: I said to draw where Jews live. This is just a stupid picture of my head./ Elsa: Yeah, that’s where we live.”

  • Characters: Jojo, Elsa
  • Technique: Sarcasm, dialogue

#27: “You’re not a Nazi, Jojo. You’re a 10 year old kid who ‘likes’ Swastikas and ‘likes’ dressing up in a funny uniform and wants to be part of a club.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Sarcasm

#28: “I am beginning to question your loyalty to myself and the party. You say you are a patriot but where is the evidence?”

  • Character: Adolf
  • Technique: Rhetorical question

#29: “Y’know, I’m not sure we chose the right side. I’m beginning to wonder if we might be the bad guys.”

  • Character:  Yorkie
  • Technique: Dramatic irony, comedic understatement, colloquialism

Rabbit - Jojo Rabbit Quotes

Rilke Quotes

#30: “He knelt down like a proper gentleman, recited a poem by Rilke, and when I said ‘yes’ we danced into the night.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Intertextuality, motif

#31: “Oh of course, your favourite, Rilke. Jewish mother.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Sarcasm

#32: “It’s like my favourite poet Rilke says: “We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go.”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Intertextuality

#33: “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. – Rainer Maria Rilke”

  • Character: Jojo
  • Technique: Intertextuality, truncated sentence, juxtaposition

Elsa Quotes

#34: “I’m not a ghost Johannes, I’m something worse. But I think you already know that, don’t you? You know what I am.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Hypophora, motif

#35: “Go on then, tell them. But you know what happens if you do? I’ll say you helped me. And your mother too. Then we’ll all be kaput.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Hypophora, truncates sentence, slang

#36: “We’re like you but human.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Sarcasm

#37: “There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Imagery, religious allusion (to Hebrew Bible)

#38: “Perhaps we’re all ghosts now but we just don’t know it.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Metaphor, motif

#39: “No, their heads are too thick for us to penetrate. Like birds, our true language sounds like singing. Crystals, glass and gold.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Humour, imagery, simile

#40: “Just ask Pissaro, Modigliani, Man Ray, Gertrude Stein, Mr. Moses and the king of them all, Jesus Christi, Amen.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Listing, religious allusion, cultural allusion, literary allusion

#41: “Well sometimes he’d prefer I was dead. Wouldn’t you, little Frankenstein?”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Irony, literary allusion, symbolism (Creator and the Monster)

#42: “Jew and Nazi are not friends.”

  • Character: Elsa
  • Technique: Juxtaposition

Bradenburg Gate

Dance Quotes

#43: “We have to dance to show God we are grateful to be alive.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Motif

#44: “Dancing’s for people who are free. It’s escape from all of this.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Motif

#45: “Jojo: What is the first thing you’ll do when you’re free?/ Elsa: Dance.”

  • Character: Jojo, Elsa
  • Technique: Motif, dialogue

Rosie Quotes

#46: “Mama Lion worries about her cub, that’s all. Especially when papa Lion isn’t here.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Zoomorphism, metaphor

#47: “Now, you’re going to pluck up your courage, walk out that door and have a fantastic adventure. Okay?”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Idiom

#48: “And that’s all you have left, belief – hope that your only remaining child is not just another ghost.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Motif, tautology

#49: “Hey! No more politics ok? Dinner is neutral ground. This table is Switzerland.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Exclamation, metaphor, humour

#50: “Surprise, surprise, your shoelaces are undone. Again.”

  • Character: Rosie
  • Technique: Epizeuxis, motif

On the hunt for quotes from other texts aside from Jojo Rabbit?

Check out our list of quotes for the following texts:

Are you looking for some extra help with your Jojo Rabbit quotes?

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Christina Ugov is currently completing a double degree in International and Global Studies and Theatre and Performance at the University of Sydney. Outside of her studies, she enjoys exploring creative writing projects, analysing literature and playing with her cat. She spends her spare time reading, listening to music and drinking lots of tea.

Ashley Sullivan is a Senior Content Writer for Art of Smart Education and is currently undertaking a double degree in Communications (Journalism) and a Bachelor of Laws at UTS. Ashley is an editor for UTS Vertigo. She is a film, fashion, and fiction enthusiast who enjoys learning about philosophy, psychology, and unsolved mysteries in her spare time.

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