“The fire was silent, the little houses collapsing into the flames without complaint, flocks of sparks rising to the sky. At a distance it seemed beautiful, and I thought it was strange that powerful violence is often so pleasing to the eye...”

“This wasn't the way I had imagined my adventures, but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came. Maybe someday my arms and legs would thicken with muscle and the fear would drain away like dirty bathwater. I wish I believed these things would happen, but I didn't. ”

“I have never been much of a patriot. My father would not have allowed such a thing while he lived, and his death insured that his wish was carried out. Piter commanded far more affection and loyalty from me than the nation as a whole. But that night, running across the unplowed fields of winter wheat, with the Fascist invaders behind us and the dark Russian woods before us, I felt a surge of pure love for my country.We ran for the forest, crashing through the stalks of wheat, beneath the rising moon and the stars spinning farther and farther away, alone beneath the godless sky. ”

“Every woman has a dream lover and anightmare lover. The nightmare lover, he just lies on top of her, crushing her with his belly, jabbing his little tool in and out till he's finished. He got his eyes clenched shut, he doesn't say a word; essentially he's just jerking off in the poor girl's pussy. (Kolya Vlasov)”

“I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the must absurd beauty.”

“I didn’t know if we were heading for the gallows or an interrogation chamber. The night had passed without sleep; save for a swig from the German’s flask, there hadn’t been a sip to drink since the rooftop of the Kirov; a lump the size of an infant’s fist had swelled where my forehead had cracked the ceiling- it was a bad morning, really; among my worst- but I wanted to live.”

“[Lev Beniov:] "The imminence of death did not frighten me as much as it should have. I had been too afraid for too long; I was too exhausted, too hungry, too feel anything with proper intensity. But if my fear had diminished, it was not because my courage had increased. My body was so weak, so spent, that my legs trembled from the effort of standing upright. I could summon no great concern for anything, including the fate of Lev Beniov.”