Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction.

When the whole discussion of "developing a national idea" hastily began in post-Soviet Russia, I tried to pour cold water on it with the objection that, after all the devastating losses we had experienced, it would be quite sufficient to have just one task: the preservation of a dying people.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

A leader should not be a man who arbitrarily imported his own ideas but the essential focal point for a group of people who trusted one another and worked for a common aim.

Morality is always higher than law and we cannot forget this ever.

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

Generosity is a two-edged virtue for an artist - it nourishes his imagination but has a fatal effect on his routine.