Everyone in Russia must awaken the citizen within himself.

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

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.

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

Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.

To love others, first find that sense of connection within yourself. In other words, love yourself first. that's when you will learn to love life.

I watched my parents act as completely equal partners in their relationship, and as a son to a woman I respect immensely, I never thought of gender inequality as a child.

A garden is mainly ...a space around which interests can be accumulated.

For years and years I have done the work I was born for.

No one person has to do it all but if each one of us follow our heart and our own inclinations we will find the small things that we can do to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment.

If you connect with someone just once, that's something. But if you can connect twice, that's something else.

You should go into every relationship as a brick and not a blanket.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

Good works are continually being undone by the tons of hatred and anger which are being poured out on the world.