When I was in the gulag I would sometimes even write on stone walls. I used to write on scraps of paper, then I memorised the contents and destroyed the scraps.

The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it.

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

A man used to riding in a car cannot understand a pedestrian.

Yes, you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out.

Communism will never be halted by negotiations or through the machinations of detente. It can only be halted by force from without or by disintegration from within.

Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society . . . loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.