I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back into an authoritarian empire.

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.

Everyone in Russia must awaken the citizen within himself.

The greatest risk to man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits.

When true love broke my heart in half, I took the whiskey from the shelf, And told my neighbors when to laugh.I keep a dog, and bark myself.

Even gods decay. Like, in 1890 somebody sold off thousands of mummified Ancient Egyptian sacred cats - _for fertilizer_. Get the point? Constancy isn't.

I've had my best times when trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I've always loved high style in low company.

Miley would never have been Hannah Montana.

I think one of the best things you can do is write really sad songs that touch some semblance of... I guess 'hope' is the right word?

I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material.

I cover media people the way they cover politicians.

Brotherly love is the badge of Christ's disciples.

Twins are under-represented in the media. Hamlet - never twins. Hamlet Twins Of Denmark. King And Queen Lear. It would work. Come on, more twins on television.