Gabrielle Roy

"Florentine had grown more or less immune to the charms of spring."

"Azarius, for his part, had not made her voyage to the depths of pain to understand that death and birth, in that place, have almost the same tragic meaning."

"Running anywhere, blindly, hating the echo of her footsteps in the silence of the empty streets, Florentine fled from her own fear, fled from herself."

"She understood at once, and with the courageous goodwill that sustained her, resigned herself to the fact: there was always a drawback. There had to be. Sometimes it was the lack of light, or a factory nearby, or not enough rooms. Here, it was a railroad."

"Why, this man seemed barely older than himself, Emmanuel thought. He gave off a sense of almost irresistible vigor. Quite simply, he had at last become a man..."

"For a long time he stood at the window looking at the shining rails. They had always fascinated him. Squinting a little he saw them stretch away to infinity, carrying him off to his rediscovered youth."

"Every moment of every day and night he was able to take the measure of his failure now. Even his familys poverty which for years he had refused to admit, began to grow familiar to him, but like the memory of a companion that one has left behind. Rose-Anna...Shed been a young girl at his side, then tired, then overwhelmed, and here she was sleeping beside him on a kind of pallet, on the floor. He could hear the whimpers from the children in their sleep."

"Peace has been as bad as war. Peace has killed as many people as war. Peace is as bad. Peace is as bad..."

"Finally anger took possession of him. It was his turn to ask the question already raised by so many others: We, down there, the ones who join up, were giving everything we have to give, maybe our arms and our two legs. He looked up at the high grills, the curving driveways, the sumptuous facades, and completed his thought: Are these people giving all they have to give?"

"Where could you find a light to guide the world?"

"That was when she recognized love: this torture on seeing someone, the greater torture when he was out of sight, in short, a torture without end."

"..."Would you wait for me?" he asked suddenly, his voice husky and low. "its not right, but would you wait? Would you you wait till the world is cured again? A year? Two years? Maybe longer! Could you give me all that time, Florentine?" She pulled back from him, wary of his words. What did he mean? "Till the world cured..." What kind of talk was that? She was fearful of what she didnt understand, but felt at that moment she felt their destinies in her hand..."