“The seasons sang to him - like ageless hymns with whisperings he could feel, but not fully understand.”

“Tonight the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come marched in goose-step and raised a hand to salute "Heil Hitler!" Tonight the ghost wore a swastika on his armband instead of the simple red and white colors of Austria. And yet, on this silent night, the horrible specter seemed all but invisible in Vienna. Murphy could only wonder if he was the sole person at Sacher's who could hear the anthem of Hitler's hordes echoing distantly from beyond the mountains.”

“This pursuit of Theo was not borne out of hatred for him as a man or a Jew. All of that was just an excuse - an excuse for lawless men to take what belonged to others. It seemed strange that those who served the Hitlers and the Himmlers and the Gorings believed constant lies. "The Jew is a misfortune." It was those little men in the service of greed who were the most violent, the most dedicated to the brutality of the racial policies. They murdered and terrorized for one reason only: because they could. They were the law of the lawlessness; the power of evil was their creed and their joy and their god!”

“Nobody liked Goring except Hitler and Goring.”

“He scowled at the typewriter, at the empty sheet of paper.”

“Hot tears rolled from Herschel's eyes and he wiped them away, afraid that they would drip through the boards and onto his father's unfeeling tormentors.”

“ . . . he thought how easy it would be to simply kick his typewriter onto the floor and smash it to pieces among the wads of discarded paper that overflowed his waste basket.”