Only an extraordinary person can turn opportunity into reality.

Once the fight is on-strike quickly and often.

How quickly a zek (a prisoner) gets cheeky-or, putting it in literary language, how quickly a man's requirements grow.

Too much art was no art at all. Like candy instead of bread!

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.

I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

A human being is all hope and impatience.