” You can walk down ten thousand crowded streets in ten thousand cities of the world, and nobody will give damn one about whether you cope or can’t cope, whether you live or die. The ones who notice you wonder if there’s any safe way to use you, or they give you a part in the little fantasy theater inside their skulls. There is an estimated price on you clothes, shoes and purse, but the rest of you is just so much live meat. Pretty meat. No bonus for how well you perform the feat of living.”
“That is so goddamn cold!” she said loudly.
“Scare you?”
“I guess.”
“That’s the way it is. Nobody grades your performance except you and your own ghosts.” (70)

“I backed out onto the street and paused for a moment and looked at that house again. It looked exactly the same, but it had fallen down. Those big boxes were emptier than ever before. There was no good way he could mend it. She knew and he knew and I knew that he should have gone directly from his talk with Collier to the authorities and explained what he was being asked to do and why. He shouldn’t even have paused to pick up a personal lawyer to sit in. Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards for integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset. Crime pays a lot better. I can bend my own rules way, way over, but there is a place where I finally stop bending them. I can recognize the feeling. I’ve been there a lot of times.” (205)

“It was at Teruel that he ran into Elisabeth Eidenbenz for the second time.
“… In a lull between two enemy attacks, Victor bumped into her next to one of the food supply trucks. “Hello there, do you remember me?” Elisabeth greeted him in a Spanish enriched by guttural German sounds. Of course he remembered her, but seeing her left him dumbstruck. She looked more mature and more beautiful than ever. They sat on a piece of concrete rubble; he began to smoke, and she drank tea from a canteen.
“What’s become of your friend Aitor?” she asked him.
“He’s still around in the thick of it, without a scratch.”
“He’s not afraid of anything. Say hello to him from me.”
“What plans do you have for when this war is over?” Victor asked.
“To find another one. There’s always war somewhere in the world. What about you?”
“If you like, we could get married,” he suggested, overcome with shyness.
“She laughed, and for a moment became a Renaissance maiden once more.
“Not on your life, man. I’m not going to get married to you or anyone else. I don’t have time for love.
“Maybe you will change your mind. Do you think we’ll meet again?”
“Without a doubt, if we survive. You can count on me, Victor, if there’s any way I can help you…”
“The same goes for me. May I kiss you?”
“No.” (8)

“‘We have to defend democracy, but remember that not everything is politics. Without science, industry, and technology, no progress is possible, and without music and art, there’s no soul,’ he would maintain. (18)

“We can all turn into savages if we’re given a rifle and an order,” said another prisoner who had come over to them. (241)