Oriana

“He looked at the gun. "Aren't you afraid?"
"Of course I am," Anna said. "Of course I'm afraid. But that doesn't help."
He shook his head. "No," he said, "it doesn't help to be afraid. Bad things happen anyway. You're right.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“They saw him walk away, leave a world he'd never really been part of. They saw him pull his hat down low and get onto his bike. He forgot the Walkman's earplugs. Maybe, Anna thought, he didn't need them anymore; maybe the white noise had finally made it into his head.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“And she imagined how things could be later. It was stupid, but the picture just appeared in her mind. Abel and Magnus shoveling snow together... in twenty years, in thirty. Magnus had grown old, his broad back still strong but bent from time, his hair nearly white at the temples. And Abel... Abel was a different Abel, an adult one, one who was absolutely self-confident and didn't let his eyes dart around the room at lunch, as if he were caught in trap.
"Nonsense," she whispered. "Thirty years? You don't stay with the person you meet at seventeen... what kind of fairy tale are you living in, Anna Leemann?"
And still the picture seemed right.”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller

“That cloak of love you were wearing—he’s torn it to shreds, undoing the seams of trust that held it together. How can you ever wear those shreds?”
― Antonia Michaelis, The Storyteller