I'm a bad Jew, a bad Russian, a bad everything.

The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.

Every life has a file, if you will.

I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.

The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.

For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life - the lesson of your utter insignificance.

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one’s drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one’s language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.