Character: Robert Ross

- For a doctor, it's as easy as shelling pears. Patching people up again so that they die in the next war.

Those who decided to stay precisely because they would soon be able to return began to torment some vague sense of loss. The prospect of staying in the States did not seem as bright as before, although, in essence, nothing changed. And those who intended to return and before whom Europe, the old homeland always loomed, suddenly felt that now this is not paradise at all, but a devastated land full of all sorts of problems. It was like a weather vane: it turned one side, then the other. The touching illusions that they all lived with burst. Both those who wanted to return and those who wanted to stay equally felt like deserters. This time they deserted themselves.

What you least expect happened in my life too often: it was one of the unwritten laws of emigration.

New York is too hot and too cold, cold, like that damn neon light - the very inconsolability; it seems that you are alone wandering the streets and chattering your teeth from the cold.

I have a terrible feeling, Natasha, that I love you. And we put so much effort to avoid this.

- He adores me so much that my head starts to ache. It's so boring!

Once my homeland was Germany, then Austria, France, in general - Europe, and after that America, and each time this or that country became my homeland only because I left it, and not at all because I lived in her.

- Winter has come for you. You're always one season ahead of your time. Remember when you told me? And now you're in the midst of winter fashions and snow blizzards.

Natasha outwitted me, I thought bitterly, she had chosen the place of the battle. And now I had to fight not on her, but on my own territory, which is always dangerous. Once upon a time a familiar matador explained this to me.

I knew that we were fighting as a joke, that it was just a game. But the arrows weren't that dull, the words penetrating deep into the skin.

- Not the saddest, but the wisest.

We have learned some concepts from the last century, the century of romance, but now they should be greatly changed. This includes the concept of happiness. How easy it was to be happy! Moreover, happiness meant absolute happiness! I am not talking now about writers or counterfeiters - they have been able to fool entire epochs with their cunning lies; even great people fell under the hypnosis of a bright ball with gold leaf, called "happiness": they considered it a panacea for everything! The person who fell in love was happy, and since he was happy, then he was absolutely happy!

Over the years of wandering, I learned some rules that were necessary for me to survive, but not very suitable for my personal life; one of these rules was: never admit that you lied. In the struggle with the authorities, it justified itself, but in relations with the woman he loved, it was not always acceptable, although even here it brought more benefit than harm.

- It's good that you didn't say: I'm happy. Usually, lying doesn't bother me. Yes, I can lie myself. But sometimes the lie is unbearable.