Experience is primarily the ability to restrain our fleeting impulses.

This was how you wound up in the Inquisition. When you stopped being able to see any difference between Light Ones and Dark Ones. When for you, people weren't even a flock of sheep, but just a handful of spiders in a glass jar. When you stopped believing in the future, and all you wanted to do was preserve the status quo. For yourself. For those few individuals who were still dear to you.

If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you're already late.

Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart." "So what's vodka for?" "For the soul. If it's hurting real bad

We are our own gods and our own demons.

When people got old, why did they always develop a passion for scrabbling in the earth? Were they trying to get used to it?

Love is happiness, but only when you believe it will last forever. Even though every time it turns out to be a lie, it’s only faith that gives love its strength and its joy.