Quotes from the Novel
(page numbers refer to the 2003 edition put out by
HarperCollinsPublishers in Great Britain)
Tatiana brushed her shoulder blade-length platinum hair. She didn't
hate her hair any more. How could she, for Alexander had loved it so
much. [pg 6]
[Tatiana has a flashback to her time in Leningrad with Alexander]
Alexander: "There are women, I know there are, who listen to their
men. I've seen them. Other men have them --"
Tatiana: "Other men took them all." [pg 8]
[Another flashback]
Tatiana: (to Alexander) "If the NKVD come for me, I will
know you are gone and I will be happy to stand against the wall. I
will stand against the wall and never regret a second I spent with you."
[pg 8]
[In the flashback, Tatiana is kissing Alexander]
Alexander: "Tatiana..."
Tatiana: "Shh."
Alexander: "Can't you see I'm breaking?"
Tatiana: "Ah. You're still in one piece then." [pg 9]
Sven: "I see -- for you, it's winter. Don't worry. Summer's
here. The ice will melt."
Tatiana: "It's not the ice any more, my seagoing philosopher. It's
the pyre." [pg 11]
Tatiana: (to baby Anthony) "Look, Anthony. Do you
see? Do you see the water? It is pretty, right? And across
the harbor there is a big city with people and streets, and parks.
Anthony, as soon as I am better, we will take one of those loud ferry
boats and walk on the streets of New York. Would you like that? Your
father would." [pg 17]
[Alexander has a flashback to Tatiana]
Tatiana: (saluting him) "I'll see you, the captain of
my heart." [pg 19]
[Alexander has a flashback his childhood -- arriving at his family's
residential hotel in Moscow with his father, Harold]
Harold: "This is not bad. This will be great. Alexander,
you have your own room, and your mother and I will stay here. Come,
I'll show you your room."
Alexander: "But the smell, Dad..."
Harold: "Don't worry. You know your mother will clean.
Besides, it's nothing. Just...many people living close together.
It's the smell of communism, son." [pg 23]
[Dr. Sayers and Alexander know that the NKVD is coming soon]
Dr. Sayers: (about Alexander's gun) "They'll take it
from you."
Alexander: "They'll have to. I'm not surrendering it." [pg
29]
Dr. Sayers: "Don't worry about Tania. She'll be all right.
She'll be with me. I won't let her out of my sight until New
York. And she'll be all right then."
Alexander: "She'll be as good as she can be. Offer her some
chocolate."
Dr. Sayers: "You think that'll do it?"
Alexander: "Offer it to her. She won't want it the first five
times you ask. But she will take it on the sixth." [pg 31]
Slonko: "I do have power over you, and do you know why? Because
very soon I am going to have power over your wife."
Alexander: "Really? I'll be very surprised. Do you have
power even over your own? I doubt you'll be able to have power over
mine."
Slonko: "Oh, be sure I will and I intend to tell you all about it."
Alexander: "Please do. Then I will instantly know you're lying."
[pg 151]
Alexander: (to Slonko) "I'm surprised at you. Didn't
you know who you were dealing with? Strange that when we think we know
so much, we know so little." [pg 155]
[Vikki's grandmother Isabella calls her "Gelsomina"]
Tatiana: "Gelsomina?"
Vikki: "Don't ask. It means jasmine. It has something
to do with my dead mother."
Isabella: "Your mother is not dead! She is in California!"
Vikki: "She's in California. That means purgatory in Italian."
[pg 180]
Isabella: "In 1923, our eldest daughter, Annabella, had Gelsomina
--"
Vikki: "And called me Viktoria."
Isabella: "What does she know? What kind of an Italian name
is Viktoria? No kind." [pg 182]
Sam: "Why didn't you come to me earlier in the day?"
Tatiana: "Mr. Gulotta, I took five a.m. train to come from New York.
I have only these two days off, Thursday and Friday. I spent
until now walking between State and Justice Department buildings. You
first person talking to me. I was going to White House next."
Sam: "I think our President is busy. Something about an invasion
of Normandy. I hear there's a war on." [pg 259]
Vikki: "I'm not going on some surprise train trip. Where do
you think you're going?"
Tatiana: "Anthony wants to see Grand Canyon."
Vikki: "Anthony is one! He wants to see his mother find herself
an apartment and a new husband, not necessarily in that order."
Tatiana: "No. Just Grand Canyon." [pg 264]
Alexander: "The white-and-blue bridge down near Tarnow...does it have
a name?"
Vera: "Most do Swietokryzst. The bridge to Holy Cross." [pg
288]
Alexander: (to Ouspensky) "The stories I can tell you,
I've forgotten. The stories I remember, I can't tell you." [pg 292]
Ouspensky: "We can't fight in the woods. I will not fight in
the woods. It's completely different warfare in the woods. You
can't see dick."
Alexander: "No, you can't. I'm sorry I can't make war more palatable
for you." [pg 298]
Ouspensky: (to Alexander) "What do you think you
are made of, Captain? Until just now when I saw you bleed red blood
like the rest of us, I wasn't sure."
Alexander: "It's not my blood." [pg 299]
Alexander: "There is just one thing, Lieutenant, that the Red Army
overlooked."
Ouspensky: "What's that, sir?"
Alexander: "I have no intention of dying." [pg 299]
Vikki: "Hey, something just occured to me. The town is named
Barrington, and your last name is Barrington. Is this a coincidence?"
Tatiana: "That just occured to you?" [pg 302]
[Lieutenant Ouspensky is angry about Alexander siding with Pasha]
Alexander: "Why are you taking this so personally, Lieutenant? What
does this have to do with you?"
Pasha: "For some reason, everything."
Ouspensky: "Oh, fuck you! No one is talking to you. Why
don't you breathe through your pen and shut the fuck up." [pg 358]
Ouspensky: "I'm doing it under protest, I tell you."
Alexander: "You've been in this whole war under protest." [pg 359]
I will make you insane, her memory screamed at her near the winter window
sill as Tatiana smelled the brine of eternity. On the outside you will walk
and smile as if indeed you are a normal woman, but on the inside you will
twist and burn on the stake, I will never free you, you will never be free.
[pg 374]
Pasha: "Lieutenant Ouspensky, have you ever in your entire fucking
miserable life said yes to anything? You know what's going to be on
your grave? 'Nikolai Ouspensky. He said no.'" [pg 381]
Edward: "The entire Ellis Island knows about Tatiana. Why do
you think they don't let her go on the refugee boats any more? She
lets in every single person on those boats. They know of her halfway
across the ocean. Oh, to get into Tatiana's inspection line, to get
her to touch them." [pg 409]
Vikki: "Oh, my God. You're not doing it for them."
Tatiana: "Doing what?"
Vikki: "You're doing it for you. You said to that man,
who wants to know, as if you're waiting for the person who wants to
know if you're Nurse Tatiana." [pg 410]
[Vikki wants to know how Tatiana has time to go around finding jobs for
the immigrants of New York City]
Tatiana: "I do nothing. Occasionally, I ask our building super
if they looking for another doorman. Is that so hard?"
Vikki: "I don't know. I don't ask. Why should
you?"
Tatiana: "Because it costs me nothing. But now Diego from Romania
is gainfully employed."
Vikki: "What a gas you are. Is this your legacy to America?"
Tatiana: "It is not my legacy. It is my thanks." [pg 410]
[The lettering on the gate of Sachsenhausen, a camp for political prisoners,
reads "Arbeit Macht Frei"]
Prisoner: "What do you think that means?"
Alexander: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
Misnoy: "No. It means, 'Work will set you free.'"
Alexander: "As I was saying."
Misnoy: "This must be a Class One camp. For political prisoners. ... In
Buchenwald, the engraving didn't say that. It was for more serious, more
permanent offenders. ... Buchenwald read, 'Jedem das Seine. To Each His
Own.'"
Alexander: "The Germans are so fucking inspiring. [pg 466]
Harold: (quoting "If" to Alexander) "If you can force
your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after they are gone,
and so hold on when there is nothing in you, except the will which says to
them, 'Hold on!'" [pg 457]
[Tatiana is holding a gun on Jeb]
Jeb: "Where on earth did you get that little playtoy?"
Tatiana: "My husband and father of my son gave it to me to protect
me from cannibals. My husband was major in Red Army and he knew how
to use this, and he taught me. Now get out." [pg 464]
[Jeb leaves after Tatiana lodges a bullet in the wall a few inches from
his head]
Anthony: "Was my daddy really a major in the Red Army?"
Tatiana: "Yes."
Anthony: (pause) "He wouldn't have missed." [pg
466]
[Tatiana informs Vikki that she intends to go to Europe to find
Alexander]
Vikki: "Okay, this one is the best one yet, I don't think you're going
to top this one. Massachusetts was good, Iowa was better, Arizona was
best, but this one, this one is out of the park." [pg 490]
Tatiana: "Vik, listen to me. When I thought he was dead, I was
dead. I have been resurrected by Paul Markey and by Josif Orbeli. My
husband needs me. He is calling for me, trust me when I tell you that
he needs my help. Paul Markey saw him alive in April last year
all the way in Saxony, Germany, when he was supposed to be dead in Lake Ladoga,
Leningrad, thousand kilometers away. Edward talked me out of going
in 1944 because he said I had nothing. And he was right. This
time I have something. And I'm going." [pg 490-91]
Tatiana: "He needs me, Vikki. What kind of wife would I be if
I did not help him? I help complete strangers at Ellis. What
kind of wife does not help her own husband?"
Vikki: "A sane wife?"
Tatiana: "A not very good wife. [pg 491]
Tatiana went to Germany on faith. [pg 497]
[General Stepanov's advice to Tatiana]
Stepanov: (in Russian) "You're not safe. You're on the
class enemies number one list. I'm not safe. And he is not safe
most of all." [pg 514]
[Everyone is upset that Tatiana clasped Stepanov's hands during their
interview]
Governor: "But Nurse Barrington, the Soviets are barbarous. Do
you know that they closed off Berlin for eight weeks after German surrender?
Closed it off to our armies. For eight weeks! No one could
get in. What do you think they were doing there?"
Tatiana: "I don't want to guess."
Governor: "Raping young women like you. Killing young men like
Dr. Flanagan. Pillaging every house still standing. Burning Berlin.
For eight weeks."
Tatiana: "Yes. Have you seen what the Germans did to Russia?"
Martin: "Ah, I thought we did not take sides, Nurse Barrington?"
Penny: "Or the enemy's hands."
Tatiana: (about Stepanov) "He was not the enemy." [pg
516]
[Tatiana at the prison camp]
From inside cell number seven, she heard Karolich
say in a mocking voice, "How is my favorite prisoner this morning?"
"Fuck you," came the reply.
Her knees buckled. [pg 531]
Tatiana: "God, it can't be. It can't be you. I've died,
and you're waiting for me on the other side of life."
Alexander: "I have been waiting for you on the other side of
life. [pg 534]
Tatiana: "Is it really you? Tell me, before I break down,
tell me it's you."
Alexander: "Before? It's me." [pg 535]
Tatiana: (whispering) "Thank you for keeping yourself
alive, soldier."
Alexander: (whispering back) "You're welcome." [pg 537]
They kissed away Orbeli and Dimitri, they kissed away war and communism,
America and Russia. They kissed away everything, leaving behind
only what remained -- fragments of Tania and Shura. [pg 544]
Alexander: "Tomorrow Stalin is coming for me to take me back to the
Soviet Union."
Tatiana: "Stalin, my love, is late. I'm here for you today.
[pg 544]
[Alexander has reservations about Tatiana's plan to free him]
Alexander: "Not as good as your last plan, Tania. And that one
failed."
Tatiana: "That's the spirit. I'll see you at seven. Be
ready." (saluting him) "Oh, Captain, my Captain." [pg
547]
Alexander: "Tatia, you've got to stop crying every time I make
love to you. What's a man to think when every time he makes love to his wife,
she cries?"
Tatiana: (crying) "That he is his wife's only family.
That he is her whole life."
Alexander: "As she is his. But you don't see him crying." [pg
566]
Alexander: "Tania, I was dying in 1944. You can't imagine what
stormed inside me as I pushed my penal battalion across every fucking river
in Poland."
Tatiana: "I can't imagine? Alexander, what I would have
given for a penal battalion." [pg 568]
Alexander: "I felt as if I had stopped being human until I found Pasha.
At Holy Cross, God sent me Pasha because I needed him most. I
thought we were meant to escape and make our way to you. Little did
I know that you were meant to make your way to me."
Tatiana: "You saved us all, Alexander Barrington. Your one life
has saved us all." [pg 568]
[Alexander has just murdered the man who was spying on him and
Tatiana]
Tatiana: "Oh, my God, what's happened to you?"
Alexander: "What, are you of all people judging me? I'm a soldier,
not a fucking saint." [pg 576]
[The Orbeli argument]
Alexander: "You shouldn't have come back for me. You should
have just left me here. You had a good life. You were taking
care of our son. You were working, you had friends, the promise of
new things, New York. We were over. You should have just let
it be."
Tatiana: "Well, why then did you give me Orbeli in my nightmare if
you wanted me to let it be? Why did you give me a glimpse of your wasted
life?"
Alexander: "I didn't give you Orbeli for a nightmare. I gave
you Orbeli to have faith."
Tatiana: "No!"
Alexander: "Keep your voice down."
Tatiana: "You gave me Orbeli to damn me!"
Alexander: "Ah, yes, because that's what I was thinking during
those last moments. What can I do to put my wife in hell."
Tatiana: "You gave me Orbeli to torture me!"
Alexander: "I said keep your voice down!"
Tatiana: "If you really wanted me to think you were dead, you would
have said nothing. If you really wanted me to think you were dead,
you would not have asked Sayers to put your damned medal into my bag. You
knew, knew, that if I had any hint, any single word that you were
alive, I would not be able to live my new life. Orbeli was that
word."
Alexander: "You wanted a word, you got a word. Can't have it
both ways, Tatiana."
Tatiana: "We were supposed to be all about truth, and you ended our
life on the biggest lie imaginable. You put me on the rack every day.
Your life, your death were my meathooks. I couldn't twist me
way out. And you knew it." [pg 584]
more quotes coming soon