No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there - well or poorly.

In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.

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

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.

I don't have principles. I have nerves.

Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens.