Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.

The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud.

No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.

Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: "It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.

Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It's a strange world, why make it stranger?

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.