When Russia started to regain some of its strength as an economy and as a state, the West's reaction - perhaps a subconscious one, based on erstwhile fears - was panic.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynI will tell you something else: it is a major responsibility not only of portraiture but of all human communication for each of us to help everyone else discover the best that is in him.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynOwn only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday. Look around you - there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn't make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you'll hear.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe fewer limitations the artist imposes on his work, the less chance he has for artistic success.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynYou're sincere, but in order not to upset your views you avoid talking with people who think differently. You pick your thoughts from conversations with people like yourself, from books written by people like yourself. In physics they call it resonance. You start out with modest opinions, but they match and build each other up to a scale.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynA great number of publications and movies on the history of the 20th century - albeit of uneven quality - are evidence of a growing demand. Quite recently, the state-owned TV channel 'Russia' aired a series based on Varlam Shalamov's works, showing the terrible, cruel truth about Stalin's camps. It was not watered down.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn