The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, of degrees of awareness.

Death tripped down the corridor, changing step, struck out here and there, danced pirouettes; often I felt his breath on my face when he was miles away; often I fell asleep and dreamed while he stood leaning over my bed.

If the creator has a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely would have meant for us to stick it out.

I am not sure whether ethical absolutes exist. But I am sure that we have to act as if they existed or civilization perishes.

The real achievement in discoveries... is seeing an analogy where no one saw one before... The essence of discovery is that unlikely marriage of cabbages and kings — of previously unrelated frames of reference or universes of discourse — whose union will solve the previously insoluble problem.

History is a priori amoral; it has no conscience.