“The thing that most haunted me that day, however...was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred...For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away.”

“I'd seen glimpses of a different me. It was a different me because in those increments of time I thought I actually became a winner.The truth, however, is painful.It was a truth that told me with a scratching internal brutality that I was me, and that winning wan't natural for me. It had to be fought for, in the echoes and trodden footprints of my mind. In a way, I had to scavenge for moments of alrightness.”

“You kissed me, and I opened my eyes and thought you were Death. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I clung to the memory of you because it gave me comfort—the only bit of happiness I had ever had. You were my secret fantasy, my lover. My story… Lord Death is you, and the woman he stalks…is me.”“Why have you come,” he asked, “when you now know the truth?”“Because when you saved me, you forged a link between us. I don’t believe it will ever break.”“Bella,” he whispered, “I couldn’t allow you to take your life. Couldn’t bear the thought of existing in a world that you did not.”

“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.”

“Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.”

“Even though I had a history with that house, it didn't matter. You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have...is now.”