Russian Folktale Quotes

I don't feel like a traveler now," Vasya admitted, low, to Morozko .

"Neither do travelers, often enough," the frost-demon returned. ~ Katherine Arden

He spoke!" Ivan said, eyes wide. "The dog talked! Oh my god."
"An ancient witch you can believe in, but not a talking dragon that looks like a dog?" Chudo-Yudo said, sounding slightly piqued. "Hmph. Young people today have such limited imaginations. ~ Deborah Blake

I thought of all the summer evenings I'd spent sitting in the chairs under the trees beside the trailer, reading books that helped me escape Creek View, at least for a little while. Magical kingdoms, Russian love triangles, and the March sisters couldn't have been further away from the trailer park. ~ Heather Demetrios

The first time I traveled to Russia a Russian friend gave me a short little book that she referred to as "The Russian Handbook."2 Paging through the book during my flight, I was amused to read: If you are walking through the street without a jacket, little old Russian ladies may stop and chastise you for poor judgment. . . . In Russia there is no reticence about expressing your negative criticism openly. For instance, if you are displeased with the service in a shop or restaurant you can tell the shop assistant or waiter exactly what you think of him, his relatives, his in-laws, his habits, and his sexual bias. ~ Erin Meyer

I am the byproduct of an Ellis Island orgy, basically. I'm everything. I've got quite a mixture in me. I know a lot of it and I don't know some of it. I'm pretty mixed up, but mostly Russian and Irish. ~ Gavin DeGraw

You are like the winged goddess from Greek mythology. As beautiful and soaring like an angel as her". #MilanoVeneziani. #ItalianPassion: ~ Olga Goa

Despite what those on the happily coupled sidelines might think, 99 percent of online dates weren't exciting enough to be fun or nerve-racking enough to be adventurous. They were just...awkward. Boring. An hour of small talk with someone you'd think twice about saving from a burning building. Online dating was like Russian roulette. Mostly misses. But sometimes, people Evie knew had met that all-too-rare bullet: a smart, aesthetically pleasing New Yorker who was still single. Maybe tonight, Evie thought, is the night I blow my brains out. ~ Georgia Clark

No matter how competent or how seasoned, every astronaut is essentially a perpetual student, forever cramming for the next test. It's not how I envisioned things when I was 9 years old. Then I dreamed of blasting off in a blaze of glory to explore the universe, not sitting in a classroom studying orbital mechanics. In Russian. ~ Chris Hadfield

I've been reading this little book. It's called the Russian constitution. And it says that the only source of power in Russia is the people. So I don't want to hear those who say we're appealing to the authorities. Who's the power here? ~ Alexei Navalny

So I started to learn Russian and I was one of those probably way too eager, annoying young actor kids who was trying to change all my lines to Russian, much to the dismay of the director and Nic Cage. ~ Jared Leto

I think it's going to set the world on fire," said Gates. "It didn't do anything. There are fifteen comments at the bottom of the piece on the Web, and all of them are Russian mail order brides. ~ Michael Lewis

My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian. ~ Helen Mirren

Hmm," she said. "'Curiouser and curiouser,' to quote Alice. ~ Deborah Blake

Right before the election, Russia placed three thousand advertisements on Facebook, and promoted them as memes across at least 180 accounts on Instagram. Russia could do so without including any disclaimers about who had paid for the ads, leaving Americans with the impression that foreign propaganda was an American discussion. As researchers began to calculate the extent of American exposure to Russian propaganda, Facebook deleted more data. This suggests that the Russian campaign was embarrassingly effective. Later, the company told investors that as many as sixty million accounts were fake. ~ Timothy Snyder

The Russians would lose 305,000 troops in the last 42 miles approaching Berlin
about the number of American army soldiers who died in all of World War II. Of the 125,000 of Berlin's civilians who died in the Russian attack, 6,400 were suicides; ~ Andrei Cherny

At the time of the Russian emancipation, about 20 percent of the Russian population lived in serfdom. In the United States at this time, about 10 percent of the population lived in slavery. ~ Nick Tosches

Russian," she replied with a nod. "Born in Kimry. But a Muscovite for most of my adult life. North American?" "Montana. Farming collective." "I hear Montana is nice. ~ James S.A. Corey

On December 13, the tsarina suggests to the tsar: "Anything but this responsible ministry about which everybody has gone crazy. Everything is getting quiet and better, but people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole years, the same thing: 'Russia loves to feel the whip.' That is their nature!" This orthodox Hessian, with a Windsor upbringing and a Byzantine crown on her head, not only "incarnates" the Russian soul, but also organically despises it. Their nature demands the whip - writes the Russian tsarina to the Russian tsar about the Russian people, just two months and a half before the monarchy tips over into the abyss. In ~ Leon Trotsky

The weather was worsening, but winter was not the enemy of the Russian soldier; thirteen million pairs of fleece-lined boots stamped Made in the USA ensured that the Red Army marched in relative comfort. ~ William Manchester

The Russian Intelligentsia is a quite special and peculiar thing; as a spiritual and a social form it existed only in Russia. The Intelligentsia was an idealistic class, a class of people wholly influenced by ideas and ready to face prison, hard labour and death for the sake of their ideas ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

I'm of Russian-Jewish background. Like many Soviet Jews, my parents were engineers. My family migrated from Ukraine to Israel when I was six. They arrived in Israel with very little ... Within a year of arriving in Israel, the Yom Kippur War happened. ~ Sasha Roiz

When you're mortal, life is nothing more than a drawn-out game of Russian Roulette. Every moment is the spin of a gun cylinder, every decision pointing the barrel at your head. Over and over, again and again, you pull the trigger, hoping it won't be your last turn in the game. ~ J.M. Darhower

Writing is like a mental masturbation to me. ~ Lina K. Lapina

I was not only typecast as a Russian, but I was typecast as Yakov Smirnoff. This is understandable, and I was very happy to get the roles, but it would be nice to be in a movie where I could be someone else. ~ Yakov Smirnoff

Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My father sits at the head of a table before the carcass of an enormous American turkey. What he is ashamed of is the one act of decency I have yet encountered in all the tales of our family's past. A young boy with a dead father and a dead friend bends down before a country dog and feeds it his butter sandwich. And I know that sandwich. Because he has made it for me. Two slices of that dark, unbleached Russian bread, the kind that tastes of badly managed soil and a peasant's indifference to death. On top of it, the creamiest, deadliest of American butter, slathered in thick feta-like hunks. And on top of that cloves of garlic, the garlic that is to give me strength, that is to clear my lungs of asthmatic gunk, and make of me a real garlic-eating strong man. At a table in Leningrad, and a table in deepest Queens, New York, the ridiculous garlic crunches beneath our teeth as we sit across from each other, the garlic obliterating whatever else we have eaten, and making us one. ~ Gary Shteyngart

You will not live again.
You will not rise from the snow
Twenty-eight holes from the bayonet
Five from the gun.

I have made a shroud for my friend,
Sad cloth.
She loves, loves blood
This Russian earth. ~ Anna Akhmatova

I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives. ~ Kathryn Harrison

Dimitri shook his head and walked off, muttering something in Russian that didn't sound complimentary. ~ Richelle Mead

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

Another letter complained about the soldiers suffering in Stalingrad, asking God why He let things like this happen to the brave German people. This letter was a classic. The godless barbarians who had forgotten the image of God in the hour of their victories, the murderers who were shooting tens of thousands of Jews and Russian prisons of without blinking an eye, suddenly now remembered that there was a God somewhere after all. Where was God when they were massacring innocent women and children in the forts of Lithuania, piling them on top of the other in huge mass graves? Why didn't they look up to Him at that hour? But at that time they were playing God themselves, with the lives of millions of "subhumans." Oh, how good it felt to hear a German Nazi clamour of God! God! This was our revenge. God was no in Stalingrad. This was the Ninth Fort for the Germans. ~ William W. Mishell

To me there are two Hitlers: one who existed until the end of the French war; the other begins with the Russian campaign. In the beginning he was genial and pleasant. He would have extraordinary willpower and unheard-of influence on people. The important thing to remember is that the first Hitler, the man who I knew until the end of the French war, had much charm and goodwill. He was always frank. The second Hitler, who existed from the beginning of the Russian campaign until his suicide, was always suspicious, easily upset, and tense. He was distrustful to an extreme degree. ~ Hermann Goring

It was about the impression our students made on a German who lived for some time in Russia: 'If you show a celestial map to a Russian schoolboy who has never heard about such things before,' that German wrote, 'the next day he will return the map corrected.' The Germa was trying to say o Russian youth that they combine infinite conceit with total ignorance. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky