Tatyana Tolstaya Quotes

People know that I am a very good author. But they would rather read what I have to say about the next election.

Art has nothing to do with politics. It is the freest thing in the world.

I only wanted books - nothing more - only books, only words, it was never anything but words - give them to me, I don't have any! Look, see, I don't have any! Look, I'm naked, barefoot, I'm standing before you - nothing in my pants pockets, nothing under my shirt or under my arm! They're not stuck in my beard! Inside - look - there aren't any inside either - everything's been turned inside out, there's nothing there! Only guts! I'm hungry! I'm tormented!...
What do you mean there's nothing? Then how can you talk and cry, what words are you frightened with, which ones do you call out in your sleep? Don't nighttime cries roam inside you, a thudding twilight murmur, a fresh morning shriek? There they are words - don't you recognize them? They're writhing inside you, trying to get out! There they are! They're yours! From wood, stone, roots, growing in strength, a dull mooing and whining in the gut is trying to get out; a piece of tongue curls, the torn nostrils swell in torment. That's how the bewitched, beaten, and twisted snuffle with a mangy wail, their boiled white eyes locked up in closets, their vein torn out, backbone gnawed; that's right, that's how your pushkin writhe, or mushkin - what is in my name for you? - pushkin-mushkin, flung upon the hillock like a shaggy black idol, forever flattened by fences, up to his ears in di, the pushkin-stump, legless, six-fingered, biting his tongue, nose in his chest - and his head can't be raised! - pushkin, tearing off the pois

If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship, this pressure produces diamonds.

I am interested in the subject which is Russia.

You, Book! You are the only one who won't deceive, won't attack, won't insult, won't abandon! You're quiet - but you laugh, shout, and sing: you're obedient - but you amaze, tease, and entice; you're small, but you contain countless peoples. Nothing but a handful of letters, that's all, but if you feel like it, you can turn heads, confuse, spin, cloud, make tears spring to the eyes, take away the breath, the entire soul will stir in the wind like a canvas, will rise in waves and flap its wings!

If there is a pattern, it will come back - maybe in Russia more than anywhere else, because it has collapsed so many times. Maybe less so here in the States, because here the society is so young.

You read, move your lips, figure out the words, and it's like you're in two places at the same time: you're sitting or lying with your legs curled up, your hand groping in the bowl, but you can see different worlds, far-off worlds that maybe never existed but still seem real. You run or sail or race in a sleigh
you're running away from someone, or you yourself have decided to attack
your heart thumps, life flies by, and it's wondrous: you can live as many different lives as there are books to read.

No, not ten, not seconds, everything's different there, space slips away, and time collapses sideways like a ragged wave, and everything spins, spins like a top: there, one second is huge, slow, and resonant, like an abandoned cathedral, another is tiny, sharp, fast
you strike a match and burn up a thousand millennia; a step to the side
and you're in another universe ...

I have enough energy to insist on saying what I think.

In December, at the darkest time of the year, Olenka delivered triplets. Mother-in-law came by and called Benedikt in to come look at the brood. She congratulated him. He lay there, empty and heavy-hearted, waiting for the signal; and there wasn't any. All right then, he'd go take a look.
There were three kids: one appeared to be female, she was tiny and cried. Another seemed to be a boy, but it was hard to tell right off. The third
well, you couldn't figure out what it was
to look at, it was a fuzzy, scary-looking ball. All round-like, but with eyes. They picked it up in their arms to rock it, and started singing: "Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting ... " and with a shove it pushed away, jumped on the floor, rolled off, and disappeared into a crack in the floor. They all rushed to catch it, their hands outstretched. They moved stools and benches
but no luck.

The best time is always yesterday.

Dostoyevsky's indignation at Afanasy Fet's innocent lyrics, "Whispers, timid breath, the nightingales trilled," is well known. This is simply disgraceful, wrote Dostoyevsky indignantly, and he speculated what an insulting impression such empty verses would have made if they'd been given to someone to read during the Lisbon earthquake! Some people protested: Yes, of course, Dostoyevsky is right, but we aren't having an earthquake, and we aren't in Lisbon, and after all, are we not allowed to love, to listen to nightingales, to admire the beauty of a beloved woman? But Dostoyevsky's argument held sway for a long time. It did so because of the way Russians perceive Russian life: as a constant, unending Lisbon earthquake.

That's what poems are for, so you don't understand a thing.

The world may perish, but the meat grinder is indestructible. (112)

And wanting nothing, regretting nothing, Peters smiled gratefully at life - running past, indifferent, ungrateful, treacherous, mocking, meaningless, alien - marvelous, marvelous, marvelous.