We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.

It's extremely hard for athletes to accept what's happened to them sometimes. It's hard to be beaten by a small margin, and I've spoken with athletes who, for years afterward, have been tormented by the knowledge that, had they done something ever so slightly different, they could have been one-ten-thousandth of a second quicker.

That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.

We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.

I think bravery means a different thing to everyone.

Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.

your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works. Certainly not to girls who stack up their firewood against the side of the house.