Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.

Every act of perception has an emotional coloring.

It was wrong to be too pragmatic, to judge people solely by results; it was more humane to judge by intentions.

Happiness doesn't depend on the actual number of blessings we manage to scratch from life, only our attitude towards them.

To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.

Human nature is full of riddles and contradictions; its very complexity engenders art-and by art I mean the search for something more than simple linear formulations, flat solutions, oversimplified explanations.

I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.