“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.”

“I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.”

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up. ”

“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.”

“We danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and we kissed too sweet, and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.”