“In Paris, I found myself surrounded by Germans; they were all over the place. They played music, and people would go and listen to them! All along rue de Rivoli, as far as you could see from place de la Concorde, there were enormous swastika banners five or six floors high. I just thought, This is impossible.Imagine that someone comes into your home—someone you don’t like—he settles down, gives orders: “Here we are, we’re at home now; you must obey.” To me that was unbearable.”

“We could see the bombing in London and we heard of the battles going on in Africa and other places. But what made me really furious was the occupation. When I arrived in Paris from Normandy, shortly after July 14, 1940, notices were placarded, “Mr. So and So was shot last night.” There were notices like that on columns along rue de Rivoli. Those poor people had been caught outside after the curfew, taken to a police station, and if there was any action whatsoever against the Germans during the night, they were shot.”

“Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she to die here they would cover her up with a stone, and in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable.”

“Home. One place is just like another, really. Maybe not. But truth is it's all just rock and dirt and people are roughly the same. I was born up there but I'm no stranger here. Have always felt at home everywhere, even in Virginia, where they hate me. Everywhere you go there's nothing but the same rock and dirt and houses and people and deer and birds. They give it all names, but I'm at home everywhere. Odd thing: unpatriotic. I was at home in England. I would be at home in the desert. In Afghanistan or far Typee. All mine, it all belongs to me. My world.”

“Switch places," Sam ordered me. "What are we doing, playing musical partners here?""I didn't know we were playing with Foosball sharks here.We're starting over.”

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take. ”