“Mama was crying, and the rain made it seem as if the whole world was crying.”

“-a whole world can lie before someone, if love is there when one wakes.”

“The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. "And they lived happily ever after,”

“I don't know what you mean when you say 'the whole world' or 'generations before him.'I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.”

“Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel. ”

“Jonas went and sat beside them while his father untied Lily's hair ribbons and combed her hair. He placed one hand on each of their shoulders. With all of his being he tried to give each of them a piece of the memory: not of the tortured cry of the elephant, of their towering, immense creature and the meticulous touch with which it had tended its friend at the end.But his father had continued to comb Lily's long hair, and Lily, impatient, had finally wriggled under her brother's touch. "Jonas," she said, "you're hurting me with your hand.”

“Because of fear, they made shelter and found food and grew things. For the same reason, weapons were stored, waiting.”