“I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that nothing really matters except being alive.”

“It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens.”

“Like most girls, I want a lot. Fame and fortune. Equal rights. Shoes no one else has. But I'd trade all that in for the perfect guy. (Don't tell me there's something wrong with that. I don't know of a single person who doesn't spend most of her time thinking about love.) Anyway, ever since I could think, I have been imagining and reimagining the exact sort of boy I want to love and who would love me back. Basically, I imagine someone who has all the good attributes of the male species and whose bad ones wouldn't ruin my life.”

“All our luxuries won't keep some men from dying -- it can only be a matter of time until I see it happen -- but in our lazaret death will creep silently onto the operating table or nestle between clean sheets.”

“I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing.”

“I cross myself and close my eyes. Where we go next, we go together.”

“I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am.”