A miracle that he was even speaking, and then to say what he had said. Usually you hear only about the things that excited people, never about what s… - Anna Seghers

If there remained in him only the strength for one tiny movement in the direction of freedom, no matter how senseless and useless the movement, he would still want to make it. (chapter III p173)

I felt anxious, the way you do when a dream seems too real and at the same time something intangible, imperceptible, tells you that whatever makes you feel happy or sad can never be reality. (chapter 7 p156)

What normally is spread over the span of a lifetime, over a number of years, an exertion of all of one's powers to the breaking point, the relaxing and yielding and painful straining again-all this took place in his mind in the space of an hour-while minutes changed. (Chapter V, p262)