...there was another, gorier parturition, when two nations incarnated out of one. A foreigner drew a magic line on a map and called it the new border; it became a river of blood upon the earth. And the orchards, fields, factories, businesses, all on the wrong side of that line, vanished with a wave of the pale conjuror's wand.

Distance was a dangerous thing, she knew. Distance changed people.

Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.

In the end, it’s all a question of balance.

I think a lot about the past, it's true. But at my age, the past is more present than the here and now. And there is not much percentage in the future.

There didn't seem to her any harm in it, and the make-believe was so comforting.