If you want to change the world, who do you begin with, yourself or others? I believe if we begin with ourselves and do the things that we need to do and become the best person we can be, we have a much better chance of changing the world for the better.

Shall I describe the happiness it gave me to go into the classroom and pick up the chalk? ... It seemed to me the supreme, heartbreaking happiness to enter a classroom carrying a register as that bell rang, and start a lesson with the mysterious air of one about to unfold wonders.

A poet cannot be a Party member ... without paying the price.

The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

If we could all take a sober look at our history, then we would no longer see this nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past that predominates among the less affected part of our society.

That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life