“Contemporary literature can be classified under three headings: the neurotic, the erotic and the tommy-rotic.”

“CHAPTER 10: For questions about librarians featured in erotic literature, you will find absolutely nothing in the public library.”

“Literature cannot develop between the categories "permitted"—"not permitted"—"this you can and that you can't." Literature that is not the air of its contemporary society, that dares not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers, such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a facade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as waste paper instead of being read.-Letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers”

“There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer them, or turn them into literature.”

“There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.”

“We classify things as easy or difficult, but this is not right, tasks should be classified as possible or impossible and the possible ones can be easy or hard”