Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives
The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones; unspoken phrases, silent words.
You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.
Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.
The whole time I was hoping my silence would fit yours and exclamation marks would gently float across time and space so that boundaries would be crossed; the whole time I was praying you would read my eyes and understand what I was never able to understand. See, we were never about butterflies. We’ve always been about burning stars. All about us is unearthly and radiant.
It is unbearably painful for the soul to love silently.
When you read magazines and you see everybody having fun, you think, ‘okay, that’s where I want to be. ’ But once you get in it and you achieve the success that you want, it seems like that’s where the player hating starts. You know that’s where everybody’s like, ‘Well it’s not all that
Aging is no accident. It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul. We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge. Thus the final years have a very important purpose: the fulfillment and confirmation of one’s character.
Bitterness is the trap that snares the hunter
In my personal opinion, Russia is no less democratic than it used to be. It is a democratic country. It is democratic enough.