“Love is forever. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be love. The world is beautiful. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the world.”

“Pain is necessary. Pain is life. Without pain there can be no joy.”

“She's hurt and still imagines I'd worry about him for even a second ? I touch her shoulder. Her touch her shoulder. Her dark hair brushes the back of my hand. Her dark eyes shine. Their brightness ...”

“You're never perfectly safe. No human being on Earth ever is or ever was. To live is to risk your life, your heart, everything.”

“Our hearts, the war.Her body, the battlefield.”

“The world existed for a very long time before this particular set of seven billion billion atoms came along and it will go right on after they're scattered up, down and sideways.”

“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.”

“At the end of the day it's about how much you can bear, how much you can endure. Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves.”

“Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.”

“A true philosopher must never give up.”

“...these sleepless nights, when oddly enough my concentration was high, fueled perhaps by the effort to ignore the all-engrossing threat of bombs and rockets.”

“Never, never, never give in!”