In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.

Shiny musical instruments wailed, their mouths open like lilies.

A mountaineer’s house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests.

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

Not a single thought managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly changed her mind as she realised that thousands of women, after a hard week's work, or a family quarrel, or even just after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort.

Can a country's people be better than its planes?

I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter.