A drop in the ocean has no fear of a hurricane.

In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.

I insist on believing that beauty elevates human beings.

A horrible human toll the Russian Orthodox Church suffered throughout almost the entire 20th century. The Church is just rising from its knees. Our young post-Soviet state is just learning to respect the Church as an independent institution.

I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances - from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer's pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.

If so far we have been unable to see clearly or to reflect the eternal lineaments of truth, is it not because we too are still moving towards some end-because we are still alive?

There is eternal simplicity to a solution once it has been discovered!