Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.

I'm trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing.

More than anything, one is struck by the light. Light everywhere. Brightness everywhere. Everywhere, the sun.

Literature seemed to be everything then. People looked to it for the strength to live, for guidance, for revelation.

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.

Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.