If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, I WILL live through anything.

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.

Lazarevo drips you into my soul, dawn drop by moonlight drop from the river Kama. When you look for me, look for me there, because that's where I'll be all the days of my life.

Everything comes at a price. Everthing in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is, what price are you willing to pay?

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

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.

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.