“Holy shit, you’re the most accomplished stalker I’ve ever met.”“It’s not stalking if you like it.”

“You’re seriously in love, you know that? It’s a great feeling, unless it hurts like a bitch.”

“Falling in love with you isn’t easy. Most people waver between loving you and killing you, and you’re usually lucky they come out at the loving you side.”

“Hey, comrade,” Dima said, tone, choice of words, everything exactly as it would have been in the eighties, in that forsaken country.Vadim peered at him in the mirror. “Yes?”“Are you guys in trouble?” Dima moved closer, stood within touching distance. “I don’t mean your little crusade a while back. I mean the rest.”Vadim inhaled and lowered his gaze for a few moments. “Life isn’t easy, Dima. That’s our set of rules.”“You know you can change them. If he’s fucking around….”“So am I.”“But you’re not happy with it?”“It’s just sex, Dima.”Dima looked at him for a long time. “It’s never just sex for you, though. Am I wrong?”“No. You’re right.” Vadim shook his head. “Rules, Dima. We’re a different case.”Dima reached out and took him by the shoulders, pulling him up and back against him, which made Vadim look at himself in the mirror.“It’s not easy. I wish it was.”

“There’s no glory in this whole shit. No war is ever glorious. Heroes are usually dead. Besides, they rarely turn into heroes because they are super-humans, but because of circumstances.Heroes rarely think. Heroes just act. So, all this is, is a stage for glory, small, personal and up to each one of us.”

“No time for books, no patience. What good would they do? They don’t tell you how to survive.” “No, they don’t do that. They are reason, not tool.” Vadim smirked. “They hold more truth than Pravda. Politburo can’t lie in Pushkin. Pushkin was there before we became Soviets. It means…if we have past, we have future.” (…) “At least I know that there are many truths. It’s about learning to think different thoughts. Know things that you never felt. You could know what being rich feels like, or being in love, without ever getting real feeling.”

“I’ve never woken to another’s body in the same bed, not since I was a child. There is something about it that makes waking up alone seem unnatural. Man is not meant to be alone, yet men like us (or maybe men like me) appear to be lonelier than others.”