We walk alone through this world, but if we're lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness.

He came over in long pur­pose­ful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a ten­der, pos­ses­sive ges­ture wiped the lip­stick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked. “All the other girls wear it,” Ta­tiana said, quickly wip­ing her mouth, breath­less at the sight of him. “In­clud­ing Dasha.” “Well, I don’t want you to have any­thing on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.

You are my hand grenade, my artillery fire. You have replaced my heart with yourself.

Open your eyes, soldier,” Tatiana said fondly, caressing his face.“Are you hungry?” “I was hungry,” Alexander said. “But you fed me.” His body was shaking underneath his sheet.

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.

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

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