Man is mortal, and as the professor so rightly said mortality can come so suddenly

Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.

Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.

You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.

Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!

The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes—never!

No one's fate is of any interest to you except your own.

But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.

I don't have any special talents, just an ordinary desire to live like a human being.

Why do smart people exist, if not to figure out convoluted problems?

Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.

The biggest void that people can have in their lives is a sense of humor. Spending your life with someone who doesn't have that wouldn't be palatable.

God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.

As for the usefulness of poetry, its uses are many. It is the deification of reality.

Meg Pokrass writes like a brain looking for a body. Wonderful, dark, unforgiving.

It's a "keep your fingers crossed" business, the entertainment business.

Cool thing about Fidel Castro is that the CIA and the mafia - which are both terrible organizations that tried to murder him again and again - haven't succeeded.

Well, I talk about one moment in the book, but I don't know if that's my moment of discovery. It was a moment. In the book, I talk about how I started shooting, how I became a photographer.

I drink Vitamin Water nonstop - I should have an IV.

The question to ask about the writer isn't 'Why does he behave so badly?' but 'What does he gain by wearing this mask?

I still write more songs about girls than anything else.