Daphne Kalotay Quotes

He had insinuated himself into Nina's life in a gentle, measured way, through small gifts and intelligent, respectful notes. His attention was never overbearing, nor disturbingly selfless, but wise and reserved.

But Drew liked the simplicity of her downsized life, this quieter existence. One needed, she saw now, only a few belongings, just as one needed only a few close friends, and a single passion - it need not be a person, necessarily.

No, solitude did not trouble her. She could spend long minutes gazing out the window, hours listening to the BBC on the public radio station. She relished the very texture of her privacy, its depth of space and freedom, much of an entire day hers alone.

A man's voice was saying, "Odette seems a little off tonight."
"You think?" answered a woman.
"Less confident than last night's," said the man. "I wonder if she's injured." A loud put-upon sigh. "Not to mention that the swans sound more like a herd of elephants."
Oh, come on, Grigori wanted to say: You spoiled, spoiled people. The dancer was wonderful, just like the swan-girls, doing their best to deliver them magnificence. If she was "slightly off", it was nothing Grigori had been able to notice. These people - himself included - were all so thoroughly indulged, could they not simply accept the wonder of it, sitting in this lush, gilded theater while a live orchestra accompanied so much physical exquisiteness? And this man thought he had the right to be disappointed! That these people expected so much, that they could expect that much, and not be ashamed of their petty disappointments.

I remember when I left Hungary," Zoltan said, "understanding so completely that literature could save me as much as it could get me killed. Of course it's not like that here. But isn't it funny, that in some ways the price one pays for freedom of speech is ... a kind of indifference.

There are only two things that really matter in life. Literature and love.

The way the diamond caused people to reasses her
their palpable appreciation that Drew was loved by someone, was someone worth loving

One needed, she saw now, only a few belongings, just as one needed only a few close friends, and a single passion - it need not be a person, neccissarily.

When I asked if she read poetry anymore, she said no. she had lost her taste for it. That was how she said it, lost her taste. I asked how that could happen, and she said she agreed with Plato, or at least Plato as summarized for her: that there was something dishonest about it and that he was right to want to banish the poets.

What she mean't, she told me, was that the only reality was life, real life, and that these beautiful versions were lies and she no longer had patience for it.

It's true that the audience gasped when Nina did her thirty-two fouettees. They began applauding when she was just half way through, so loudly that she couldn't hear the music and had to hope the conductor would simply follow her. With each whip of her leg she spun faster, beads of sweat flying, stinging her eyes - and yet she finished cleanly, precisely, and counted calmly to five before releasing the pose. Secretly, though, Nina finds it cheap, these technical feats. A cheap way to impress, nothing subtle or artful - just virtuostic display, demanding of applause and dropped jaws. Nina wants to do more than fancy tricks; she wants her body to sing, her eyes and her hands and the very angle of her head to convey every nuance of the music, and each facet of whichever character she is called on to play.

She looked at the people around her and felt not just that she was surrounded by strangers, but that she herself was strange, somehow, that something kept her from ever fully bridging the gap between who she was and who all these other people, making their way through the very same day, were.

Just like with love. It's all or nothing ... That's why love is dangerous. We stand up for love. We take risks. Well, you of all people know about that - your own Soviet Russia, an entire nation rearranged to discourage love for anything other than one's country.'
Because love caused people to think for themselves, to look out for themselves and their loved ones.

Bolshoi ... A mother's life, one long errand. One enormous chore.

It wasn't that she didn't believe in love; but she no longer believed in it for herself.

Pretty much all my life I've wondered about my birth parents, wondered who they were, what they were like. But since I had my children, I don't wonder anymore. Because I look at my kids, and I can see the answer. It's right there in their features, in who they are. Everything that isn't Rick and his family must be from my side. It's my kids who are finally showing me where I come from.