“How fortunate we were who still had hope I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die”

“Ah, my poor child, how far gone you are in your blindness! Why did you have me summoned?""I had hopes, I had hopes.""Hopes? Hopes of what?""I do not know. The things we hope for are always the things we do not know.”

“Disappointment is considered bad. A thoughtless prejudice. How, if not through disappointment, should we discover what we have expected and hoped for? And where, if not in this discovery, should self-knowledge lie? So how could one gain clarity about oneself without disappointment?...One could have the hope that he would become more real by reducing expectations, shrink to a hard, reliable core and thus be immune to the pain of disappointment. But how would it be to lead a life that banished every long, bold expectation, a life where there were only banal expectations like "the bus is coming"?”

“We never have that kind of fun now. Thinking of that made me sad. I hope we can have fun again sometime. I found out that I still know how. Maybe you still know how too.”

“I hope they know how lucky they are to have you. But that doesn't mean I will ever stop trying to have you for myself. You know as well as I do, Meena, that we belong together. I hope that day will come sometime soon. In the meantime: truce. With all the love in my heart, Lucien”

“That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.”