“My descendants will manage without my portrait' she smiled. Anyway they'll have plenty of photographs of me. To this our famous conductor replied that a photograph only gives the outward appearance of the person,whereas a painting reveals the inner world.”

“She didn't have the strength to fight hunger and injustice,she didn't know how to fight hunger and injustice,she didn't know how to fight, but she refused to enjoy a feast during this plague.”

“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.”

“Sometimes the bigger the apartment, the harder it is to find room to put up an extra person for the night.”

“...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.”

“Friends and acquaintances in this day and age don't write at all, or if they do it's only to let you know they're still alive,which explains the craze for greeting cards of all kinds!”

“I think a man can either believe in God or not believe, he can get faith and he can lose it but there is only one God for the true believer, and that is the one he carries in his heart.”