6
" As she rounded a corner one of her favourite songs came on the radio, and sunlight filtered through the trees the way it does with lace curtains, reminding her of her grandmother, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Not for her grandmother, who was then still very much among the living, but because she felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. It overwhelmed her, made her pull the car to the side of the road. Afterwards she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it. Now, however, she knows she wasn’t being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It’s a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won’t last forever. "
― Steven Galloway , The Cellist of Sarajevo
12
" A little farther south he passes the Music Academy. The building is over a hundred years old, and has been training young musicians for forty. A harp sits atop a cupola facing the street corner. Between the windows of the third and the fourth floor, a rocket-propelled grenade has punched a hole through the wall. Inside, another grenade has blown through the wall in the main concert room, but still Kenan hears the sound of pianos coming from within. Several different pieces are being played in various parts of the building, and the music blends together, sometimes becoming unintelligible, a muddy noise of strings struck by hammers, but every so often one of the songs pauses, creating a space for anothe rto emerge, and a few solitary notes of a melody slip out into the street. "
― Steven Galloway , The Cellist of Sarajevo
