“Sibyl, what do you want?I want to live, the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. I want to keep on living forever and watching heroes and fools and knights go up and down, into the world a...”

“For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because ...”

“War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving.”

“Their happiness was the kind which is fashioned of the comfortable disorder of sauvignon bottles and coffee cups in the sink, paperback thrillers with split spines on the nightstand, bathrobes hung...”

“Just remember that the only question in a house is who is to rule. The rest is only dancing around that, trying not to look it in the eye.”

“You will live as you live in any world,' Madame Lebedeva said. She reached out her hand as if to grasp Marya's, as if to press it to her cheek, then closed her fingers, as if Marya's hand were in h...”

“I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew...”

“I'll have no husband, if you be not he.”

“It was the ring on the left hand that people at the Old Girls' Reunion looked for. Often, in fact nearly always, it was an uninteresting ring, sometimes no more than the plain gold band or the very...”

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect fo...”

“Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.”

“Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.”