I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.

Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.

Hatred. Something almost as physical as walls, pianos, or nurses. She could almost touch the destructive energy leaking out of her body. She allowed the feeling to emerge, regardless of whether it was good or bad; she was sick of self-control, of masks, of appropriate behavior. Veronika wanted to spend her remaining two or three days of life behaving as inappropriately as she could.

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.