A writer is seldom satisfied with the condition he finds himself in. We're all given to fretting a lot.

An ethical man doesn't need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible.

The imprisoning of a writer is the same as the burning of a book.

I belong to the Russian language. As to the state, from my point of view, the measure of a writer's patriotism is not oaths from a high platform, but how he writes in the language of the people among whom he lives.

Man is what he reads.

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.