And everything would be different, different.

It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.

Can one move an empire as if it were a house?

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.

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.

The writer is always to some extent in exile, wherever he is, because he is somehow outside, separated from others; there is always a distance.

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.