I know that sometimes the things we carry become too much for us. We are burned down, but somehow we have to pick ourselves up and keep going

Live as if you have faith,” she said, “and faith shall be given to you.

Each day brought just another minute of the things they could not leave behind. Jane Barrington sitting on the train coming back to Leningrad from Moscow, holding on to her son, knowing she had failed him, crying for Alexander, wanting another drink, and Harold, in his prison cell, crying for Alexander, and Yuri Stepanov on his stomach in the mud in Finland, crying for Alexander, and Dasha in the truck, on the Ladoga ice, crying for Alexander, and Tatiana on her knees in the Finland marsh, screaming for Alexander, and Anthony, alone with his nightmares, crying for his father.

Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and you will know who you are. Ask: What do believe in? What do you hope for? What do you love?

Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

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.

He sent you to redeem me, to comfort me, and to heal me—and that’s just so far,” he added with a smile.