"It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven."

"Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one's well-being."

"Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation."

"The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble."

"How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?"

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

"The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man."

"Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice."

"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature."

"Literature becomes the living memory of a nation."

"For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion."

"For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones."

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