“Byelorussian songs, if you've ever heard them are slightly monotonous, even mournful yet they do have a certain melancholy charm and compassion about them.”

“They are all blinded and stunned by him,he's a God for them -- greater than a God,because people who believe in God have a concept of good and evil,charity,redemption,compassion but they don't.They have only Stalin. He's their god and their conscience.”

“...For all the profound human modesty of Comrade Stalin,he will have to tolerate our outpourings of love and loyalty to him[applause],because not only we,who live and work under his direction,but all the working people in our land,tie their hopes for a radiant future for mankind to his name.[Applause] 'Listen,why should I read this? Let's go' Gleb repeated. All right.All right. But what do you think?-He's flunky!-But he wrote The Quiet Don,a great novel.In the twenties there was doubt about his authorship.They even had a special commission to investigate.I heard something about that.Akimov told me.The read author was some White officer.But no one would acknowledge that...If The Quiet Don is a work of genius,the author cannot be flunky.As your beloved Pushkin said,dearie,genius and evil are incompatible.Not every genius can overcome fear.And Sholokhov is no genius.”

“Those are gladioli,Josef Vissarionovich.The lower buds open before the tops.But it's better when they blossom at the same time.So the lower ones are wrapped in black paper,to keep them from blooming until the top ones do.”

“The smart tyrant flatters the people with words,while with deeds he destroys them.”

“The golden stock of the Russian Revolution.' Where is this golden stock today? These people have come to replace them. From the top to the bottom.They are offering up Russia,they driving people to their deaths.Sasha remembered:Panait Istrati had called those who had opposed and fought against Stalin in the 1920s and who were annihilated by him in the 1930s 'the golden stock of the Russian Revolution”

“...Alexei Tolstoy,Leonov, and Zoshenko had demanded that Tukhachevsky be shot. Pasternak ought to be added to them.Yes,even Pasternak couldn't stand the pressure.Vadim trembled with joy when he saw his name among the rest.."Tell me dear what millennium is it outside? This one!Everyone signed--Vsevolod Vishnevsky,Vasily Grossman,Tynyanov,Paustovsky,Konstantin Simonov,Antokolsky,Fedin,Sholokhov,Fadeyev,Tikhonov,all of them...Is that considered the normal order of things?”