Freedom! To fill people's mailboxes, eyes, ears and brains with commercial rubbish against their will, television programs that are impossible to watch with a sense of coherence. Freedom! To force information on people, taking no account of their right not to accept it or their right of peace of mind. Freedom! To spit in the eyes and souls of passersby with advertisements.

As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.

For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

Own 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.

A storm breaks trees. It only bends grass.

Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.

When we feel that we are not sufficiently respected, we should ask ourselves whether we are living as we should.