The West should be even more vocal in insisting that the Russians respect human rights.

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 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.

In Russia only those who are loyal to the people in power can become wealthy.

We have joy for the assurance of the promise.

Even though I know that breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm, I'm still ashamed that my brain is broken.

This is the day the Lord had made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Men are more visual creatures and rate women based on looks. We like to laugh and be shown a good time. I've never rated anyone on looks.

Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten when their noblest and most enduring works decay?

When I finish a song, I never feel like I want to restrict its life. I feel that once I've done something, it's out. It's in people's ears, cars, headphones. It has its own journey.

What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?" said Snape softly. "Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade.

Those who believe in the importance of serving others should lead the way by fighting against the temptation we all have, and maybe especially as we age, to close in upon ourselves.

There is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? Mor come to the conviction that what seems the succession of thought is only the distribution of wholes into causal series.

Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs.