“The front door is usually unlocked and there is no alarm system. They don't wear their seat belts in the car; they don't wear suntan lotion in the sun. They have decided nothing can kill them but G...”

“Perhaps a hero is someone who doesnt register his own vulnerability. Is it courage, then, if youre too daft to know youre mortal?”

“Kolya was a braggart, a know-it-all, a Jew-baiting Cossack, but his confidence was so pure and complete it no longer seemed like arrogance, just the mark of a man who had accepted his own heroic de...”

“Too many words for one book--truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.”

“I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others ev...”

“That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't ...”

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

“Of course, peace treaties are very attractive to those who sign them. They strengthen one's prestige with the electorate. But the time will come when the names of these public figures will be erase...”

“How would I explain to him that I couldnt make peace with him? How would I explain that if I did I would immediately lose my inner balance? How would I explain that one of the arms of my internal s...”