And everything would be different, different.

In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.

I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter.

Can one move an empire as if it were a house?

Shiny musical instruments wailed, their mouths open like lilies.

Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.

It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.