Oh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.

Tatiana and the soldier were having a silence

Love is when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry.

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

Tatiana: "Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?" Alexander: "That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.

Courage, Alexan­der,” she whis­pered. “Courage, Ta­tiana.

I have a certain sensibility that I bring to my writing that comes from knowing two things: what I as a reader like to read, and what as a writer I am capable of. I know my own limits. I know there are things I cannot do.