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.

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!

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

Courage, Alexander..... Courage, Tatiana

All good things come to those who wait.

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

Here, take this, she would say, take this, and tell me where he is. Tell me whether he's dead or alive, so I can walk as his widow or his wife. No one would, or could, tell her, and so she continued to cook, and to learn new things all the while searching for an answer among the outcasts. The way he carried his body, the way he walked in my life, Tatiana thought, declared that he was the only man I had ever loved, and he knew it. And until I was alone without him, I thought it was all worth it.