Russian Author Quotes

If circumstances should make it impossible (temporarily, I hope) for me to be a Russian writer, perhaps I shall be able, like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become for a time an English writer ... ("Letter To Stalin") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is a tradition, paradoxically, of experimenters and innovators. Perhaps the principal quality that unites them is their approach to reality and its uses in art - the refusal to be bound by literal fact, the interweaving of reality and fantasy, the transmutation of fact into poetry, often grotesque, oblique, playful, but always expressive of the writer's unique vision of life in his own, unique terms. ~ Mirra Ginsburg

I believe you!' the artiste exclaimed finally and extinguishes his gaze. 'I do! These eyes are not lying! How many times have I told you that your basic error consists in underestimating the significance of the human eye. Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes - never! A sudden question is put to you, you don't even flinch, in one second you get hold of yourself and know what you must say to conceal the truth, and you speak quite convincingly, and not a wrinkle on your face moves, but - alas - the truth which the question stirs up from the bottom of your soul leaps momentarily into your eyes, and it's all over! They see it, and you're caught! ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Chronicling the mid-1970s up session with Gerald Ford's clumsiness, the author quotes a medieval maxim that the king has two bodies. The head of state has a physical body like everyone else, but he also represents the body politic, either reflecting its majesty or its weakness. ~ Rick Perlstein

I always think one ought to be grateful to an author if one has liked even a small bit of a book. ~ Anthony Powell

Author Brene Brown - her books inspire me to "dare greatly". ~ Megan Alexander

Constantly changing shape as its rulers annexed contiguous territories, Russia was an empire out of scale in comparison with any of the European countries. Moreover, with every new conquest, the character of the state changed as it incorporated another brand-new, restive, non-Russian ethnic group. This was one of the reasons Russia felt obliged to maintain huge armies whose size was unrelated to any plausible threat to its external security. ~ Henry Kissinger

The easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think clearly. ~ Bill Vaughan

Reality for me is what I create! ~ Manjiri Prabhu

If you want to surpass the stages of doubt and secure better communication between your inner and outer body it is wise to surpass the challenge of the words 'if only'. ~ Stephen Richards

You are the only author of the story of your life. 'Fate' is just an excuse for all of your wrong decisions. ~ Adwitiya Borah

Admittedly, I advance some ambitious theories of my own in this book.
But I must stress that I consider them provisional, and I would urge you
to consider whether I might be mistaken. Please, I would ask, consider
that I might be mistaken particularly if my book makes you feel really,
really good inside. Feelings of exactly this type, shared between author
and reader, seem likely to have led the entire discipline of political philosophy
systematically astray for much of its history. Do not trust them. ~ Jason Kuznicki

Look.I'm...uh...When you told me you'd looked at my stuff.I didn't...I shouldn't have..."
What is it about those two words-I'm sorry-that makes otherwise articulate guys into babbling idiots? I mean, I love you, I get. That's a tough one, putting yourself so completely, nakedly out there. I haven't ever said that to a guy. A guy other than Frankie or my dad, anyway. But I'm sorry? I say it twenty times a day.To Nonna, when I just can't face a three-course breakfast at seven in the morning, to the half-dozen people I bump into on my frantic rush up those eight blocks to school. To Sadie, for having to copy her algebra homework for,like,the thousandth time, because I didn't get to mine.
I'm still waiting for Leo to apologize for totalling my bike three years ago. I forgave him eventually. Riding a bike in the middle of the city is a little like playing RUssian roulette with a bus. Still, it would have been nice t have gotten an I'm sorry instead of a litany of excuses. I figure I'll be waiting forever. ~ Melissa Jensen

I write books, bitch! ~ Junnita Jackson

I condemn the entry of a Russian so-called humanitarian convoy into Ukrainian territory without the consent of the Ukrainian authorities and without any involvement of the International Committee of the Red Cross. ~ Anders Fogh Rasmussen

At that time I had complete confidence in Russian policy and I believed that the Western Allies deliberately allowed Russia and Germany to fight each other to the death. ~ Klaus Fuchs

The problem is that in order to publish a book in mainland China, you have to agree to be subject to censorship. That's the nature of the system. I don't challenge that system on its face. It's their system. But as an author, I have a choice to make whether I'll participate or I won't. ~ Evan Osnos

If the article mentions some celebrity-perhaps a recently dead politician-the author will want to mention some pointless detail from her last meeting with that person or the emotions she experienced when learning of the subject's death. ~ David Brooks

Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, tells us that people become unhappy if they have too many options in life. The problem with options is that choosing any path can leave you plagued with self-doubt. ~ Scott Adams

Regarding fiction, our concern shouldn't be the author's origin (and of course I am forgetting the sales people right here), because that is actually merely a simplified, almost insulting judgment of the book by its cover - or rather by the name and origin of its author - an act of discrimination if we want to say it in a more provoking way, but at the least an act of ignorance and false empathy. ~ Sasa Stanisic

You will never know the purpose of a book in your life until you read it, and you will never know which book you should be reading until you read many others that you shouldn't. ~ Robin Sacredfire

My grandfather had come over as a member of the czarist army, to make an arms deal with the British government. Being a blinkered military man, he was unaware that the Russian Revolution was about to take place. ~ Helen Mirren

Writing a book is like dating. It's exciting. It's dreamy. And after four years, I just want to end it. ~ Carole Radziwill

Only those who believe can achieve what others merely dream about.
However, without these same dreams we will achieve little.
Dream AND believe to ACHIEVE!!! ~ Leslie Austin

The 1960s was a period when writers in the West began to be aware of the extraordinary eloquence and popular attraction of the Russian poets such as Yevtushenko and Voznesensky - oppositional figures who could draw crowds. The Russian poets recited from memory as a matter of course. ~ James Fenton

Renegotiating a deal with a Russian is like French-kissing a Kodiak. The Kodiak comes out of it satisfied and you come out of the other end of the Kodiak. ~ Michael Eves Shaffer

Whereas land reform was the first act of the Bolsheviks, it was the last act of the Whites: that, in a peasant country, says it all. ~ Orlando Figes

I find a tattered copy of 1984. I open the book and read a little. Of course it is fiction, but the author gets a few things right - the control, the scrutiny, the feeling that nothing can be spontaneous, that the slightest move carries consequences for your future. It evokes a feeling I haven't experienced in a long time, a sense that, even though you have a great job and house, there is no safe place to turn. The ~ Adam Johnson

Mychael Eiliesor. Guardian paladin, sacred protector, master spellsinger, fashion consultant. ~ Lisa Shearin

Our life is a book that writes itself and whose principal themes sometimes escape us. We are like characters in a novel who do not always understand what the author wants of them. ~ Julien Green

I spoke on a panel once with a famous new age author/guru in leather pants and she said that the problem with women is that we don't "speak from our power," but from a place of victimization. As if the traumas forced upon us could be shaken off with a steady voice- as if we had actual power to speak from. ~ Jessica Valenti

Use Cosmic Ordering now, not as a morning after pill. ~ Stephen Richards

I learned a good deal about economics, and about America, from the author of the Reagan tax reforms - the great Jack Kemp. What gave Jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief in the possibilities of free people, in the power of free enterprise and strong communities to overcome poverty and despair. We need that same optimism right now. ~ Paul Ryan

Your life is a screenplay, you must be the author; direct and make it a success. ~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

You need to take small steps when you dream big dreams. I am a published author with dyslexia, a professional speaker who was in speech therapy for three years as a child because I had a lisp; and a slow stiff kid from the suburbs who became an All-Pro in the NFL. ~ Karl Mecklenburg

My impressions of the Russian Revolution can be divided into two periods. The first period was when I showed deep sympathy. My second period is one of disappointment. This change was the result of close observation on the spot. ~ Chiang Kai-shek

We're often silent. We don't yell and we don't complain. We're patient, as always. Because we don't have the words yet. We're afraid to talk about it. We don't know how. It's not an ordinary experience, and the questions it raises are not ordinary. The world has been split in two: there's us, the Chernobylites, and then there's you, the others. Have you noticed? No one here points out that they're Russian or Belarussian or Ukrainian. We all call ourselves Chernobylites. "We're from Chernobyl." "I'm a Chernobylite." As if this is a separate people. A new nation. ~ Svetlana Alexievich

if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its "message" which I got first and which I will never shake off. ~ Henry Miller

It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German. ~ Markus Zusak

Your slave and enemy,
D.Karamazov ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky