“When others walk away from a lost cause, then that is the time you can step in and seize success.”

“Once you considered failure you were one step farther away from success.”

“Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.”

“My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child–wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.”

“A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.”

“A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is.”