Vita Nostra (Vita Nostra, #1)

by Marina Dyachenko

“The world, as you see it, is not real. And the way you imagine it—it does not even come close. Certain things seem obvious to you, but they simply do not exist.”

The monster slowly climbed out of the broken tower. It shifted, pulsated, spilled onto the ground, but Sasha saw only its eyes. Motionless. A bit cloudy. Staring at Sasha, and no one else. And staring back into those eyes, Sasha realized with all her core being something that many understood before her: The creature did not care that Sasha was loved by someone. And that she loved someone herself. And that she had had a childhood, and she had splashed on the seashore; and that she had an old knit sweater with a reindeer embroidered on the front. There were plenty of people loved by someone, the ones who carried a seashell, a button, or a black-and-white photograph in their pockets. But no one had ever been saved by memories, no one had been protected by words and pledges, and those loved greatly by others died too.

Love is not when you are aroused by someone, it’s when you are afraid for that person.

When you buy a train ticket, you are not only reading your future, you are forming it.

“All girls are mad. Each in her own way.

You are a foundation upon which an entire universe can be built. And this cannot be explained, Sasha, it can only be understood.”

“You understand everything,” Portnov was saying. “You are just lacking experience and knowledge.

“I am a human being. But I am a verb,”

“Forgive me. When I was still a human being . . . I was wrong.”

It’s impossible to live in the world where you exist. It is impossible to live in the world where I do not exist.

To live is to be vulnerable. To love is to fear.