Living is a compromise, between doing what you want and doing what other people want.
I would rather be seated between any two women than any two men at a dinner party.
One does not go to Moscow to get fat.
The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia.
To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.
Russia is the only country of the world you can be homesick for while you're still in it.