When I was in the gulag I would sometimes even write on stone walls. I used to write on scraps of paper, then I memorised the contents and destroyed the scraps.

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world.

It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

The generation now coming out of Western schools is unable to distinguish good from bad. Even those words are unacceptable. This results in impaired thinking ability.

To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.

That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.

There you go again, declaring the exact inverse of your experience. You human pups are so full of the things you're sure of. Sit down and listen for a change.

For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

Never answer a letter while you are angry.

For me, books are music for my mind and my imagination. When I am stuck in something I'm writing, I simply read my way out of being stuck. You can never waste time reading.

I've suffered too much to hide my feelings.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.

The story about me, apocryphal or not, is that I could sing before I spoke. My parents went into bedroom one day and there I was standing in the crib singing God Bless America.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

I think the best friendships are those that can stand the test of time, where the friendship is based more on who you are than on what you do or what you have.

Readers, after all, are making the world with you. You give them the materials, but it's the readers who build that world in their own minds.