“But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy had decided that they should triumph.”

“No," mom says, looking at me in the eyes. "What's a triumph is that you woke up this morning and decided to LIVE. THAT'S a triumph. that's what you did today.”

“The point is, Ilsa Hermann had decided to make suffering her triumph. When it refused to let go of her, she succumbed to it. She embraced it. ”

“The female crab has an impenetrable shell, she is so hard on the outside and yet so soft within. There is no possible point of access. The male crab must wait a whole year until the female decides to shed her shell to grow a new one. And it is only at that moment of vulnerability that the patient crab can triumph in his love.”

“From triumph to downfall there is but one step. I have noted that, in the most momentous occasions, mere nothings have always decided the outcome of the greatest events.”

“Even after making up one's mind to the sacrifices Ihad decided upon, there is always left a trace of envyfor those who have triumphed in the melancholystruggle for literary supremacy”