In Russia there are special people who are permitted to do anything. They are the sacrificial priests of power. Anyone who is not a member of this group has no clout with the state.

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.

If you jotted down all of my ill-thought out comments, you could write a book entitled, Guide to Getting Punched in the Throat for Boneheads-Mad Hatter in "Death of the Mad Hatter" (Coming Soon!)

I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.

Do not put chewed bones back on plates. Instead, throw them on the floor for the dog.

London is the most multicultural, mixed-race place on Earth.

I don't know where my songs come from... If I knew, I'd know too much, more than we are allowed on this plane.

Dementia is not exclusively a problem of the developed world.

Putting your hand into a river, you simultaneously touch the last of what is passing and the first of what is coming.

Methodology gives those with no ideas something to do.

You have to have courage to love somebody. Because you risk everything. Everything.

Time is a face on the water.