Her heart ached as though a knife had quietly slipped between her ribs.

I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.

I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?

I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone, you do not make them tell war stories. A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead.

For though, as we have said, all children are heartless, this is not precisely true of teenagers. Teenage hearts are raw and new, fast and fierce, and they do not know their own strength. Neither do they know reason or restraint, and if you want to know the truth, a goodly number of grown-up hearts never learn it.

...For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.

And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.