It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again...When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

I came to the conclusion that I am free to choose my own suffering. But I am not free to consent to someone else's suffering.

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . .

There are so many who know more than I do, who understand the world better than I do. I would be truly learned, a great scholar, if only I could retain everything I've learned from those I have known. But then would I still be me? And isn't all that only words? Words grow old, too; they change their meaning and their usage. They get sick just as we do; they die of their wounds and then they are relegated to the dust of dictionaries. And where am I in all this?