Persecution mania is still around. In your writing, in your exchanges with people, meeting people who are in Russian affairs, Russian literature, etcetera.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

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.

If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.

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

I'm 100 percent Jewish by blood, but by education I'm nothing. By affiliation I'm nothing.

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