“The tale is, in large part, our capital. I was nourished on tales...when an old person dies, a whole library disappears.”

“...when an old person dies, a whole library disappears.”

“Only the knife knows what goes on in the heart of a pumpkin." Simone Schwarz-Bart”

“It is night at the front, a shadow, a shot. The Jew who has just firedhears a moan..."And then, mother, the hair stands up on his head, for only a few feet from him in the darkness the enemy voice is reciting in Hebrew the prayer of the dying. Ai, God, the soldier has cut down a Jewish brother! Ai, misery! He drops his rifle and runs into no man's land, insane with shame and grief. Insane, you understand? The enemy fires at him, his comrades shout at him to come back. But he refuses; he stays in no man's land and dies. Ai, misery, ai...!”

“But most important, she had broken through that invisible wall of terror that surrounded her, and lived to tell the tale.”

“But wishes are only granted in fairy tales.”

“Life hands us lessons, and my lesson was to face this awful situation and grow from it, Blossom. I thought love had been taken away from me, but it hadn't been. I was still the same person who had loved Mr. Feingold and my old aunts and my cousins and my friends. I still ahd love inside of me, and I still had it to give. ”