“Before you there lie the Steppes, my darling—only the Steppes, the naked Steppes, the Steppes that are as bare as the palm of my hand. There there live only heartless old women and rude peasants and drunkards. There the trees have already shed their leaves. There abide but rain and cold.”

“A dead dog is more quiet than a house on the steppes, a chair in a empty room.”

“And, as I mused, the years fell away, hair sprouted on the vast steppes of my head, where never hair has been almost within the memory of man.”

“They got up steam and proceeded calmly to the north - where there seemed to be no people, but only mountains, lakes, reedy snow-filled steppes, and winter gods who played with storms and stars.”

“Not forever can one enjoy stillness and peace. But misfortune and obstruction are not final. When the grass has been burnt by the fire of the steppe, it will grow anew in summer.”

“Circus performers and variety shows will never captivate me in the same way as steppes or rainforests, or the sky's uncountable galaxies and all the billions of light years that separate them.”