“But I see no reason why a woman should not grow and develop in all those outlets which are suited to her nature, it matters not at all what they may be.”

New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.

I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.

For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.

There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also.

But there were years when, in search of what I thought was better, nobler things I denied these, my people, and my family.

Thousands of women are crushed and made inarticulate by that system and never develop as their natures would force them to develop were they in a decent environment.

And the woman who could win the respect of man was often the woman who could knock him down with her bare fists and sit on him until he yelled for help.

When I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.

I was ashamed of them and their ways of life. But now – yes, I love them; they are a part of my blood; they, with all their virtues and their faults, played a great part in forming my way of looking at life.

Gambling in the mark has been the great indoor sport of the capitalists for months, and consequently food has increased by 25 to 100 per cent.

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.

There’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.

But here in New York I was ignorant, insignificant, unimportant–one in millions whose destiny concerned no one. New York did not even know of my existence. Nor did it care.

Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books.

There are many men – such as those often to be found among the Indians – who are refined until they have qualities often attributed to the female sex. Yet they are men, and strong ones.

More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself.

One may summon his philosophy when they are beaten in battle, not till then.

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

My wife’s jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.

There may be good, but there are no pleasant marriages.

One person I have to make good: Myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.

For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.

For every discouragement has been allowed to come to us in order that through it we may be cast in utter helplessness at the Saviour’s feet.