My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets.

How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

Geography blended with time equals destiny.

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

If you are religious, pray. If you are philosophical, contemplate. If you are spiritual, meditate.

some of the people with the best smiles are actually broken inside

Some people are like singularities. Get close enough and you will be uncontrollably consumed in an infinite attraction and will cease to exist apart from them.

I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.

I say what's in my head, and I'm on honest ground. That is worth so much, and I think it does make my job, as a writer, easier. It makes it possible for me to give people stuff that they like.

Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.

I didn’t feel that there was much goodness in me.

It is when we lose control that we repress the emotions, not when we are in control.

My wealth is not a subject I relish discussing.

Ive always been motivated to stop people from doing dysfunctional things.