# Quote — Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

> Death, who had once lived in a fairy-tale forest where a fairy-tale wolf was creeping up on a fairy-tale goat, was no longer confined to the pages of a book. For the first time David felt very clearly that he himself was mortal, not just in a fairy-tale way, but in actual fact. ' He understood that one day his mother would die. And it wasn’t from the fairy-tale forest and the dim light of its fir-trees that Death would come for him and his mother – it would come from this very air, from these walls, from life itself, and there was no way they would be able to hide from it. ' He sensed Death with a depth and clarity of which only small children or great philosophers are capable, philosophers who are themselves almost childlike in the power and simplicity of their thinking.

- Author: [Vasily Grossman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman.md)
- Book: [Life and Fate](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman/life-and-fate.md)
- Page: 193
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman#Life_and_Fate_(1959)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman/life-and-fate/death-who-had

## More from this book

> The more difficult a man's life had been before the camp, the more furiously he lied. This lie had no practical purpose; it served simply to glorify freedom. How could a man be unhappy outside the camp?

p. 5 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman/life-and-fate/the-more-difficult.md)

> National Socialism had created a new type of political criminals: criminals who had not committed a crime.

p. 5 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman/life-and-fate/national-socialism-had.md)

> A soul can live in torment for years and years, even decades, as it slowly, stone by stone, builds a mound over a grave; as it moves towards the apprehension of eternal loss and bows down before reality.

p. 138 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vasily-grossman/life-and-fate/a-soul-can.md)