The survivor spoke to us though, or tried to. Mumbling through that matted brown beard of his, pale as death itself. I can__ say now if it was weakness from his wounds or what it was _ but we struggled to understand him. In fact we got nothing intelligible from him at all then. He seemed afraid, like any dying man probably would be, but he did seem more terrified than any dying man I__e seen before _ and I__e seen a few in my time. Let me tell you, Corsair or not, he grabbed whatever hand would hold his, and clenched it so tight his knuckles turned white! He kept fading out as we carried him on the stretcher board the medics brought with them. Looking back, I think he tried to warn us, poor bastard. He tried to tell us to leave him behind and go, but we wouldn__ listen. We thought we were better than the Corsairs, remember? We thought we would be all moral and upright and try to help him. __on__ say I didn__ warn you._ were the last words he said before losing consciousness. At least, those that we could make out. At the end of it all, he was right _ as it turned out, we couldn__ even help ourselves.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

Doubt: How can I know? Truth: How can you not?

Although I write in English, and despite the fact that I__ from America, I consider myself an Armenian writer. The words I use are in English, the surroundings I write about are American, but the soul, which makes me write, is Armenian. This means I am an Armenian writer and deeply love the honor of being a part of the family of Armenian wrtiters.

You may tell yourself a hundred times that you love someone more than yourself, more than your life and that you would do anything to be with that person even if the person does not care about you as much as you care for that person, or maybe even if you do not exist for that person at all. But, the fact is - there is always a little voice inside your head asking you to stop, turn around and walk away. The sensible thing to do would be to heed to that voice.

Do you want a good advice on your path? Here it is: Don__ be sure of your path! Don__ ever be sure of it! Do you want more advice? Here it is: Doubt your path! And examine the other paths, know the other paths!