I think having an uncompromising ideology eventually forces you out of the norm.

When writing dialogue, I hear it in both Russian and English, and try to find a language that combines the two.

Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.

Language is a personality as well. People are different when they speak different languages.

I spent seven years writing The Free World. There are a lot of things I accomplished there that I'm very proud of, but I didn't want to spend another seven years writing a book like that.

People everywhere feel differently at different times of their lives.

We are taught that we can be better than we are. But is there a limit to how good we can be?

In my experience of women, women have a greater capacity. Maybe women, even very pragmatic ones, are less guarded about showing emotions.

We all have some ideological quotient in ourselves. And I think it does guide who we are.

Nothing is easy in writing. I don't think for anyone. But dialogue is probably what comes most naturally to me.

When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel.

Your mind is a blue sky where without fear you can fly.

With great power often comes great confusion.

For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.

My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.

It did not take long to conclude that, without God, would never come to understand where the universe began and where it ended, where it came from him, where he would go

The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.

A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a woman.

What is a man? What is a woman? And why do we have to be one or the other?

A lot of comics just joke around, but it's just as important to get the truth out there.

People are like that, judging you before they know you.