Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. - Anthony Doerr

There has always been a sliver of panic in him, deeply buried, when it comes to his daughter: a fear that he is no good as a father, that he is doing everything wrong. That he never quite understood the rules. …There is pride, too, though–pride that he has done it alone. That his daughter is so curious, so resilient. There is the humility of being a father to someone so powerful, as if he were only a narrow conduit for another, greater thing. That’s how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair: as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and the brightness of that feeling would not wane.

A shell screams over the house. He thinks: I only want to sit here with her for a thousand hours.

But have heart. Hope is something that can be very dangerous but without it life would be horribly dry. Impossible, even. Take it from me.