On December 9, 1994, Yeltsin issued a statement ordering the Federal army to execute the disarmament of all illegal armed units in Chechnya, or as they were known locally, the government.

She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency.

We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

She wouldn't climb out of the bed for her sister, but she had climbed into a crater. She wouldn't cross a room, but she had crossed a continent.

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Then Brezhnev grabbed the wheel of power and captained the country with the exploratory heart of a municipal bus driver.

No one can take what's inside your head once it's there.

You will have the last word.' 'Your name will be that word.

She felt as buoyantly patriotic as her Chechen classmates who could trace their family trees back to the acorns

Her mother stared in quiet awe of this more artful rearrangement of her genetic code, and slipped into a contentedness that usually appeared only after the red wine had fallen below the bottle label.

Time became more important the closer to death one was, so an extra few hours to make peace with the world were worth more than years.

Yes, this is what my senses alone have learned:—Things don’t have significance: they only have existence.Things are the only hidden meaning of things.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, 'How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity.'

My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.

I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.

When you're surrounded by flowers, you breath better.

Dream the dream, find that extraordinary vision, and keep it in focus.

This dazzling, unput-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please.

To struggle and to understand. Never the last without the first. That is the law.

You cannot build performance on weaknesses. You can build only on strengths.

My hobby more and more is likely to be common school education, or universal education.