I mean that at least 80% of the Russian people feel destitute. It's the people who had their past and future taken from them - they don't get paid - many of them face a wall. They have nowhere to go.

You must go deeper into Russia - 150 kilometres from Moscow or more, and look there. The kids are fed with cattle feed - people don't get paid for half a year.

Think before you speak, and don't say everything you think.

I have equal contempt for both left and right radicals.

First of all I would make about 80% of the people law-abiding citizens again. The policy which is carried out now makes every entrepreneur and businessman a thief against his own will.

Most Russians don't care whether they are ruled by fascists or communists or even Martians as long as they can buy six kinds of sausage in the store and lots of cheap vodka.

There is no reason why I should call myself a democrat.

I am a Soviet man, and Yeltsin is a Soviet man - maybe our grandchildren will be different.

He who shoots first laughs last.

Russia is like a dinosaur. A lot of time is needed for change to reach the tail from the head.

Real religion begins where the tiny cocoons of belief systems end.

What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures?

I never say never, but I'm really enjoying the freedom I'm having right now.

For as long as I can remember, I have written songs because I wanted to, because I was experiencing something that couldn't be described except through a sound.

True wit is everlasting, like the sun; describing all men, but described by none.

Atheism is a theoretical formulation of the discouraged life.

Don't confuse who you are with the results that you produce.

I somehow got this reputation of diddling and dithering. I don't remember dithering at all.

How much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners.

Too often we elevate the inconsequential into the influential... by reacting without reflecting.