He was a natural, and in the Russian way, tragically above these banalities.

He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men -- it isn't their fault if life disappoints them later.

No single man makes history. History cannot be seen just as one cannot see grass growing.

If it's so painful to love and absorb electricity, how much more painful it is to be a woman, to be the electricity, to inspire love.

At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.

Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.