You have amazing gifts. Don't squander them. Don't give them out meaninglessly, don't abuse them, don't take them for granted. You are the weapon you carry with you till the day you die. -Tatiana and Alexander

I don't want this life to end," said Alexander. "The good, the bad, the everything, the very old, to ever end.

And that's my point: all great things worth having require great sacrifice worth giving.

Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow.

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

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.

Where was he, her Alexander, of once? Was he truly gone? The Alexander of the Summer Garden, of their first Lazarevo days, of the hat in his hands, white toothed, peaceful, laughing, languid, stunning Alexander, had he been left far behind? Well, Tatiana supposed that was only right. For Alexander believed his Tatiana of once was gone, too. The swimming child Tatiana of the Luga, of the Neva, of the River Kama. Perhaps on the surface they were still in their twenties, but their hearts were old.