“Some words were like that. Whole lives attached to them. Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow.”

“Simply, this is what she believed: she believed that the universe showed each of us certain things, that it made certain things open.Many people lived a peace life with nothing ever happening to them. But into some families other things fell. Some families were afflicted with random tragedies - car accidents, plane accidents, hang gliding accidents, bus crashes, knifing, drownings, scarves getting caught under the wheels of their Rolls Royces, breaking their necks.”

“We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder.”

“You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us,' Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young.”

“If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, I WILL live through anything.”

“I didn't know how to live my life, and suddenly I was thrust into it and had no choice but to live it.”

“Live as if you have faith,” she said, “and faith shall begiven to you.”