“She has become an expert at confusing what is with what was with what should be with what could be.”
“She repeats things until they are true, or until she can't tell whether they are true or not. She has become an expert at confusing what is with what was with what should be with what could be.”
“I never confused what I had with what I was.”
“What about the teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me.”
“He invented stories so fantastic she had to believe. Of cours, she was only a child, still removing the dust from her first death. What else could she do? And he was already accumulating the dust of his second death. What else could he do? ”
“She hid these things in the forest so that she could find them when she returned, and then she went forth." "Where?" "Places." "Where?" "Russia. Other places." "Then?" "Then she returned." "Why?" "To gather the things she had hidden, and to discover what remained. Everyone who went back was certain that she would discover her house and her friends and even the relatives that she saw killed. It is said that the Messiah will come at the end of the world." "But it was not the end of the world," Grandfather said. "It was. He just did not come." "Why did he not come?" "This is the lesson we learned from everything that happened -- there is no God. It took all of the hidden faces for Him to prove this to us." "What if it was a challenge of your faith?" I said. "I could not believe in a God that would challenge faith like this." "What if it was not in His power?" "I could not believe in a God that could not stop what happened." "What if it was man and not God that did all of this?" "I do not believe in man, either.”
“She died in my arms, saying, "I don't want to die." That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.”