“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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

“A great poet can have the role of spiritual head of a nation.A great ruler is the spiritual head of a nation, and next to him there can be no other spiritual head.”

“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”