I Don't Have Principles. I Have Nerves.

Were We To Choose Our Leaders On The Basis Of Their Reading Experience And Not Their Political Programs, There Would Be Much Less Grief On Earth. I Believe ... That For Someone Who Has Read A Lot Of Dickens To Shoot His Like In The Name Of An Idea Is Harder Than For Someone Who Has Read No Dickens.

...in The Business Of Writing What One Accumulates Is Not Expertise But Uncertainties. Which Is But Another Name For Craft.

My Poems Getting Published In Russia Doesn't Make Me Feel In Any Fashion, To Tell You The Truth. I'm Not Trying To Be Coy, But It Doesn't Tickle My Ego.

Boredom Is Your Window On The Properties Of Time That One Tends To Ignore To The Likely Peril Of One's Mental Equilibrium. It Is Your Window On Time's Infinity. Once This Window Opens, Don't Try To Shut It; On The Contrary, Throw It Wide Open.

Twentieth-century Russian Literature Has Produced Nothing Special Except Perhaps One Novel And Two Stories By Andrei Platonov, Who Ended His Days Sweeping Streets.