“The horse at the bottom of the river, shrouded by the sunken night sky, closed its heavy eyes. The prehistoric ant in Yankel's ring, which had lain motionless in the honey-colored amber since long before Noah hammered the first plank, hid its head between its many legs, in shame.”

“The sky slowly pulled up its blue dress to reveal night.”

“She spent an afternoon staring at their front door.Waiting for someone? Yankel asked.What color is this?He stood very close to the door, letting the end of his nose touch the peephole. He licked the wood and joked, It certainly tastes like red.Yes, it is red, isn't it?Seems so.She buried her head in her hands. But couldn't it be just a bit more red?”

“It's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life.”

“The arm was the arm, and it was the arm - not her husband, or even herself - that she thought about seven years later, on June 28, 1941, as the first German war blasts shook her wooden house to its foundations, and her eyes rolled back in her head to view, before dying, her insides.”

“[...] I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life [...]”

“I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.”