Quotes from Sarah Miller

It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens.

Olga sits on the carpet in front of her shelves with stacks of books scattered around her, struggling to pick between her old favorites. She's all bent over, like a puppet without a hand inside it.

How different it must feel to be a man: built solid through, with everything beneath the skin belonging solely to yourself. Did he ever envy what she could take into herself, how much she could contain? Could he comprehend all it meant for a woman to hold herself open for her husband, her children?

How many miles had they come? Less than halfway, and already Caroline had the sense that a separation such as this could put more than miles between folks, could right this minute be working changes she might not be entirely conscious of and might never realize at all unless she and Eliza saw each other again.

Be thankful for what is given. Caroline heard the words in her mother's voice. No matter if it is not enough, be thankful.

I'd like to know how anyone can write the truth about us if we've never met.

we must all learn to do things we don't want to do. You may be afraid, but you may not let your fear chase you away from what must be done.

All our luxuries won't keep some men from dying -- it can only be a matter of time until I see it happen -- but in our lazaret death will creep silently onto the operating table or nestle between clean sheets.

It was not a sack, but rather a circle of denim that would spread itself flat with the cord fully unlaced. Seven deep pockets, each holding one color, pinwheeled from a center humped with plain cuttings of flannel, buckram, and the like.

When the windowpanes start to turn from black to gray, my sisters cradle themselves around me, rocking me like the sea until I can taste the salt of our tears

vista no wider than their own sunbonnets.

A woman can resolve that, whatever happens, she will not speak till she can do it in a calm and gentle manner

Perfect silence is a safe resort, when such control cannot be attained.

it was not going she dreaded—only leaving.

I don't see how sugar could make that cornbread any sweeter than the prints of your hands already have.

A woman can resolve that, whatever happens, she will not speak till she can do it in a calm and gentle manner, she recited to herself as she waited for the flare of temper to ebb. Perfect silence is a safe resort, when such control cannot be attained.

Their trust in her was built of thousands upon thousands of moments already past. She was Ma, and that in itself was enough.