“...the qualifications that I have to speak on world affairs are exactly the same ones Henry Kissinger has, and Walt Rostow has, or anybody in the Political Science Department, professional historians—none, none that you don't have. The only difference is, I don't pretend to have qualifications, nor do I pretend that qualifications are needed. I mean, if somebody were to ask me to give a talk on quantum physics, I'd refuse—because I don't understand enough. But world affairs are trivial: there's nothing in the social sciences or history or whatever that is beyond the intellectual capacities of an ordinary fifteen-year-old. You have to do a little work, you have to do some reading, you have to be able to think but there's nothing deep—if there are any theories around that require some special kind of training to understand, then they've been kept a carefully guarded secret.”

“The thing is, you make choices. You do some things and you don't do others and in the end there's not much point in asking what different choices might have gained you, and lost you, unless you have a time machine. You become those choices, you embody them...I'd known I couldn't stay, just as I'd known years before I couldn't be with him, even as I'd gone on pretending I had a choice. I was who I was, and I wanted what I already had.”

“There's something about you Anastasia, that calls to me on some deep level I don't understand. It's a siren's call. I can't resist you, and I don't want to lose you.... don't run, please - have a little faith in me and a little patience please”

“You don't have to understand why anything that has happened nor do you even have to understand what it is that has happened. You have only to live with the remains.”

“There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without hoping to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion.”

“You don't have to wait for happiness, because there's no time but now to be happy. You don't have to go somewhere else, because there's no place but here to find it. You don't have to do something else, because there's nothing more to it. You don't have to get something else, because everything you already have is enough. You just have to be happy. ...”