It's great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realized that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer.

This is the inevitable consequence of a popular movie: you become the guy who wrote "the book that inspired the movie." Frankly speaking, I find it a bit insulting.

That's how myths are born. Out of our carelessness, out of our tattered nerves, out of jokes that go wrong and flashy gestures.

We are our own gods and our own demons.

You're a big boy, you ought to understand that punctual transport, public order and safe streets, polite people and good medical services are all the achievements of dictatorship.

All we can do is try not to fall.

Drinking beer in a children's playground is an old Soviet tradition.