“..The secrets started when the maid told her friend, the maid next door who told her Mistres, who told the across the street neighbor and soon the tongues were wagging like flags in the wind....”

“I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze. "Pray for me, if you like," he told his cousin. "I forgotten all the words.”

“Right back where you started, she told herself. Right back in the middle of that town. You were out, she told her heartburn. You. Were. Out. Her father once told her that when you leave a place, you should never go back, because no matter what the actual circumstances, it will always look like a retreat, a failure. That was sure how it felt.”

“..when a war ends, what does that look like exactly?do the cells in the body stop detonating themselves?does the orphanage stop screaming for its mother?when the sand in the desert has been melted down to glassand our reflection is not something we can stand to look atdoes the white flag make for a perfect blindfold?yesterday i was told a storyabout this little girl in Iraq, six-years-old,who cannot fall asleepbecause when she doesshe dreams of nothingbut the day she watched her dog eat her neighbor's corpse.if you told her war is overdo you think she can sleep?”

“The maid told him that a girl and a child had come looking for him, but since she didn't know them, she hadn't cared to ask them in, and had told them to go on to Mers."Why didn't you let them in?" asked Germain angrily. "People must be very suspicious in this part of the world, if they won't open the front door to a neighbor.""Well, naturally!" replied the maid. "In a house as rich as this, you have to keep a close watch on things. While the master's away I'm responsible for everything, and I can't just open the door to anyone at all.""That's a mean way to live," said Germain; "I'd rather be poor than live in fear like that. Good-bye to you, miss, and good-bye to this horrible country of yours!”

“The saddest thing is a little girl who is told by her own mother and father that she will never be pretty.And then they open the front door, and on the porch is a little white suitcase, with all of her things in it.”