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

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

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.

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.

Yet unlike oil, gold or woodchips, it is essential to the wellbeing of humanity. We are made of it and fashioned by it…our psychological beings resonate with it.

I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

It’s important to be yourself.

I think everyone is most confident when they are just being themselves and not trying to impress others.

I mean, everybody would love to have their clothes torn off by a mob of girls, but being screamed at is different.

There is only one way in the world to be distinguished. Follow your instinct! Be yourself, and you’ll be somebody. Be one more blind follower of the blind, and you will have the oblivion you desire.

I logically don’t believe that all this stuff [surrounding us] is generated from dust. But I’m also not like “Jesus Christ came down to save us.” It’s almost selfish to think that human beings, on this plane of reality, are the end of it.

Some values must be universal, like human rights and the equal worth of every human being.