“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...”

“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...”

“Marriage is a wrestling match where you hold on tight while your mate changes into a hundred different things. The trick is that you're changing into a hundred other things, but you can't let go. Y...”

“There's two kinds of women--those you write poems about and those you don't.”

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear o...”

“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

“every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.”

“I've never heard anyone say "I wish I hadn't forgiven.”

“We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness an...”

“Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.”

“You're not free unless you come to the place where you have nothing to prove.”

“A man who has HEALTH has a thousand dreams, but a man without HEALTH has only one.”