“It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed.”

Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.

First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of the current Russian position.

For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.

When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.

In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.

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

I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.

If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far:

Anyway, I just haven’t been able to find any humanity in any Republican candidate ever in my entire life.

Of any place that I have ever been to, it speaks such high volumes about God and creation.

I’ve been so lucky to work with such great people: people that are such hard workers and have such a respect and appreciation for one another.

For years the league has thought I’ve been on drugs. I would have burned out a long time ago if that was true.

It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.

The biggest surprise has been making the adjustment after losing a game.

I’ve been homeless. I’ve worked at 7-Eleven.