“He was already dead, he reflected. It seemed to him thatit was only now, when he had begun to be able to formulatehis thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The consequencesof every act are included in the act itself. He wrote:Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.”

“Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.”

“He had lived and acted on the assumption that he was alone, and now he saw that he had not been. What he had done made others suffer. No matter how much he would long for them to forget him, they would not be able to. His family was a part of him, not only in blood, but in spirit.”

“But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

“He thought the column was magnificent, everything it said about old age was the best he had ever read, and it made no sense to end it with a decision that seemed more like a civil death.”

“He had thought, no doubt, from the day he was born, much more than he had acted; except indeed that he remembered thoughts--a few of them--which at the moment of their coming to him had thrilled him almost like adventures.”