As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical.

Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible when it comes to the divide between the people and the state. The state demands a sacred willingness to make sacrifices from the people.

The West should be even more vocal in insisting that the Russians respect human rights.

The Khodorkovsky case is typical of the "oprichnina" - the system of oppression.

I'm not a prophet or a teacher, I just ask questions. I don't think a writer should be a teacher, but should know how to pose the questions and explain the problems.

I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it.

As a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country.

The worst thing that can happen to Russia is indifference in the West - that is, if it were interested in nothing but oil and gas.

The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: In a Democracy, portraits of a nation's leader should never exceed the size of a postage stamp. That won't happen so quickly in Russia.

In Russia one can be as pure as can be and still lose everything in a flash and end up in prison.

Everyone in Russia must awaken the citizen within himself.

My powers of persuasion are only as strong as the bullshit I have to back it up.- Charley Davidson

Don't be fretting...about me marrying. Marrying's a trouble and not marrying's a trouble and I sticks to the trouble I knows.

The hardest roads are often empty

Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.

Life is like a game, there could be many players. If you don't play with them, they'll play with you.

Women are equal because they are not different any more.

I took my daughter to the father-daughter dance and I cried like a little baby. She's 11 years old, so seeing her get dressed up and pretty made me cry.

There used to be one writer rather than a team of writers. It's the old line about a camel being a horse designed by committee.

I've always looked on myself as one of a band and never sought a solo career.

I'm fortunate enough with the surfing to be very much at home at the water - my pulse and heart rate are slower in the water than they are on land.