“No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.”

“What matters school? We can go to school to-morrow. Whether we have a lesson more or a lesson less, we shall always remain the same donkeys.”

“Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.”

“I love Cecily", "whether or not you believe it. Not in the same way I loved Rose, or you. But what should that matter? I've loved all my wives differently.”

“I wondered whether you and Mr. Locke had any recollection about the past.I see now that we all suffer the same.”

“Even judges' children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone in the country. They look out and feel the same urge to go somewhere, feel it tugging at them from head to toe. You don't have to be particularly bad off to think: This can't be a the life I get. The judges' children know as well as Lilli and me that the same sky that looks down on the border guards stretches all the way to Italy or Canada, where things are better than here. One way or the other, the attempt will be made, whether sooner or later, in this way or that.”