“If atheism solved all human woe, then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing bunnies, instead of the land of corpses.”

“It would have been good to be the girl who helped solved the Katharina Linden case, instead of the girl whose grandmother had exploded at the family Advent dinner. I wasn't greedy; it needn't have been Katharina's actual corpse that we found; a severed head - a finger - even a piece of her clothing would have been enough; the little red bow from her hair, perhaps.”

“The Soviets made me change Romeo and Juliet so that it would have a happy ending, a barbarism, because living people can dance, but the dead cannot dance lying down.”

“All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.”

“In the Soviet Union, it's takes more courage to retreat than advance.”

“The foundations of Empire are often occasions of woe; their dismemberment, always.”