Indeed, in Russia there is a terrible poverty of facts, and a terrible abundance of reflections of all sorts.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.

Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.

Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.

The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.

People should be beautiful in every way - in their faces, in the way they dress, in their thoughts, and in their innermost selves.

Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.

...it...planted seeds of doubt as to whether we think diabolically enough when we wonder what our government is doing behind our backs.

Don’t care about day to day things, don’t care about the mundane, but care about what matters.

Friends confront each other sometimes, and sometimes the friendship lasts, and sometimes it doesn't.

I have two children who died before reaching 30, so who am I to complain about being alive?

It's nice to live in a country that has its priorities straight: the library's open three hours a week, and the House of Fist is 24/7.

We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all.

Speak every time my dear brother as if it were your last

The waking mind, you see, is the least serviceable in the arts.

I'm an only child and an American and am wholly in favor of uniqueness of voice in everything, especially music and writing.

When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.