In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.

. . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.

There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.

He looked down and did something quite out of character for him: he took hold of Shmuel's tiny hand in his and squeezed it tightly. "You're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life.

There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.

(J)ust because your version of normal isn't the same as someone else's version doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.

It occurs to me that even though Zoya and I are both still alive, my life is already over. She will be taken from me soon and there will be no reason for me to continue without her. We are one person, you see. We are GeorgyandZoya.