“We were only granted 30 minutes every Thursday. Today may be the last day...and so we continued to talk, even about trivial little things, and even if our throats became sore...”

“Was it only that explosion of atavism which is now evasively called "the cult of personality" that was so horrible? Or was it even more horrible that during those same years, in 1937 itself, we celebrated Pushkin's centennial? And that we shamelessly continued to stage those self-same Chekhov plays, even though the answers to them had already come in? Is it not still more dreadful that we are now being told, thirty years later, "Don't talk about it!"? If we start to recall the sufferings of millions, we are told it will distort the historical perspective! If we doggedly seek out the essence of our morality, we are told it will darken our material progress! Let's think rather about the blast furnaces, the rolling mills that were built, the canals that were dug... no, better not talk about the canals.... Then maybe about the gold of the Kolyma? No, maybe we ought not to talk about that either.... Well, we can talk about anything, so long as we do it adroitly, so long as we glorify it....”

“So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?""I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.”

“So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.”

“We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.”

“As we go about living from day to day, it is almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged. We may at times find ourselves surrounded by others and yet standing in the minority or even standing alone concerning what is acceptable and what is not. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone?”