Our Woman in Moscow

Ruth, I spent most of my life just trying to be safe. Trying to hide from what scared me. Letting other people control what happened to me. Then I realized the idea of safety itself is just a delusion. -Life- is risky. And hiding isn't -living-. [Iris Macallister Digby]

Ain’t nobody in the world understands you like your sister. Ain’t nobody ever will.

Do you see? In this terrible war—this war between communism and liberal democracy—communism will win, because it does not care how many lives it devours.

...humans are corrupt. We are all of us selfish, ignorant beasts, loyal only to ourselves and our own kind, interested only in getting a leg up on others, whether it's money or status or moral virtue. That's why we've got religion, to discover our better angels.... [Vivian Schuyler]

Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.

She sees—no, not her life passing before her, but everything all at once—Sasha and Philip, the children, Ruth, Harry, her parents, all gathered into a single soul, like a star.

The fact is, most people are too softhearted, or they lack a certain clarity of vision, or they don’t want to make mistakes, or—this is the big one—they’re afraid of what others will think of them.

Thou knowst tis common, all that lives must die, passing through nature into eternity.

We are all different. We are all locked in struggle with our own demons.

A man had appeared out of nowhere—a thick-shouldered, square-jawed, cleft-chinned all- American of a type Iris hadn’t seen in years. He showed her some friendly white teeth and continued in a slow country cadence designed by God to soothe skittish horses. “Say, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.

To the true fanatic, everything and anything can be twisted around to prove what you believe in.

[In marriage you] go through stages, like acts in a play. Act One, you fall in love, and the birds twitter and the bees go buzz, and you'll never love somebody else as long as you both shall live, amen. Act Two, enter the baby carriage, and all of a sudden he catches sight of a pair of firm young tits and figures life is short. Act Three...you realize there's no point letting the husbands have all the fun. [Vivian Schuyler]