“In the dreams of the villagers a huge bear, a mythical apparition from the fading past, restored like Phoenix, walked around powerfully. Standing on her hind legs, moving towards them proudly, roaring with rage, and the horrified villagers, who could not fire in their dreams and could not even find their own voices, would open their eyes, bathed in sweat and would listen, listen in terror for the nocturnal screeches of eagle-owls scratching the darkness of the Cherith gorge, like meteors, disturbing and trembling.”

“If time is a fading dream
Then it would be like a flower
Even if destined to fall
It would be all the more valuable in its transience.”

“There were rare moments when a feeling and longing for solidarity with other black people would take hold of him. He would dream of making a stand against that white force, but that dream would fade when he looked at the other black people near him. Even though black like them, he felt there was too much difference between him and them to allow for a common binding and a common life. Only when threatened with death could that happen; only in fear and shame, with their backs against a wall, could that happen. But never could they sink their differences in hope.”

“We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic. And then too, the people around us refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those who believed could not comprehend. Of course they could not. Nobody could. The experience of the camps defies comprehension.”

“Crow walked toward her, arms outstretched like a man in a dream, which he was, in a way. Sometimes a dream is enough.”

“One white rose… or is it pink, to-day?'
They pause and smile, not caring what they say,
If only they may talk.
The crowd flows past them like dividing waters.
Dreaming they stand, dreaming they walk.”

“Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening thoughts.”

“He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor hear her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.”

“That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it.”

“What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”