As a result of half a century of Soviet rule people have been weaned from a belief in human kindness.

A sense of religion is something one is born with, like a musical ear. One can develop it, cultivate it, enrich it, but if one hasn't got its seed to begin with, no powers of the intellect, no sophistication of 'evidence' can awaken it.

I like old people, just as I like old trees: in their shadow there is freshness and peace, one admires them, and around them everything is so calm.

As a result of half a century of Soviet rule people have been weaned from a belief in human kindness.

The American spring is like the country itself: abundant, rich, flowing over you like a full tide. ... Azaleas were suddenly ablaze. White dogwoods stood like brides in the wood - these trees of all colors were new to me; one does not meet them in Europe, and dogwood cannot even be transplanted to other continents. White and pink magnolias, yellowish rhododendrons, all of them lived happily side by side with our ordinary lilacs and lilies of the valley - the Russian symbols of spring.

He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death... Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened. ... He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. ... The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.

For twenty-seven years I was witness to the spiritual deterioration of my own father, watching day after day how everything human in him left him and how gradually he turned into a grim monument to his own self.