“It was different in America: the incessant perpetuation of collective fantasies makes people crave the truth and nothing but the truth--reality is the fastest American commodity.”

“I deigned to suggest to him that it was also the American thing -- America was nothing if not good intentions.”

“You've never been married, so you don't know, but it is a fragile thing. Nothing ever goes away, everything stays inside it. It is a different reality.”

“The liar looks up toward it, hoping against hope that the voices in his head have told him the truth. ”

“What you see is what you see, but that is never everything. Sarajavo is Sarajevo whatever you see or don't see. America is America. The past and future exist without you. And what you don't know about me is still my life. What I don't know about you is still your life. Nothing at all depends on you seeing it or not seeing it. I mean, who are you? You don't have to see or know everything.”

“Your memories become fantasies if they are not shared, and your life in all its triviality becomes a legend.”

“...-not only did he deplore the waste of words, he detested the moral lassitude with which they were wasted. To him, in whose throat the bone of displacement was forever stuck, it was wrong to talk about nothing when there was a perpetual shortage of words for all the horrible things that happened in the world. It was better to be silent than to say what didn't matter. One had to protect from the onslaught of wasted words the silent place deep inside oneself, where all the pieces could be arranged in a logical manner, where the opponents abided by the rules, where even if you ran out of possibilities there might be a way to turn defeat into victory.”