She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.

Elena understood that sometimes it was a terrible thing to be the one who lived, that this could be a weight in your heart that never left.

She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.

There was too much, but every moment they were inside she was aware of the terrible danger they were in, and she had the distinct sense that her luck was now the thinnest piece of fragile ice, and they were edging out further and further over and abyss.

She felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance. There were the eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There was always a woman dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to all these children, You shall go through with it.

Hadn't I, always, but ever and ever, thought that life was just one great risk for the living?

One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.

Her chief dread in life, at this period of her development, was that she would appear narrow minded; what she feared next afterwards was that she should be so.

To live without risk for me would be tantamount to death.

...danger is what makes life precious.
Death is the constant danger of life.

I am always
in danger.

One never took the time to savour the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and fatal, that there never would be a return, another time.

She had been here before. She had never been here before. There was always something just out of sight, just around a corner, something she could never chase down — something that was chasing her down.

She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.