Thank you," she whispered, "for keeping yourself alive, soldier." "You're welcome," he whispered back.

There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.

Not bombs nor my broken heart can take away from me walking barefoot with you in jasmine June through the Field of Mars.

I want you to know that should something happen to me, don’t worry about my body. My soul isn’t going to return to it, nor to God. It’s flying straight to you, where it knows it can find you, in Lazarevo. I want to be neither with kings nor heroes, but with the queen of Lake Ilmen.

There are some battles, no matter how much you don’t want to fight them, that you just have to fight. That are worth giving your life for.

I'll take your breath any way you give it to me, Shura.

He is just protective over me-” “Not protective, Tania. Consumed.