Everybody has got to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?

Dictators don't like to give up power freely, and in this case, Lukashenko is no exception. So I think what he would like to do and feels that the only way he can stay safe and secure is by staying in power using any method.

The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

You must remember always to give, of everything you have. You must give foolishly even. You must be extravagant. You must give to all who come into your life. Then nothing and no one shall have power to cheat you of anything, for if you give to a thief, he cannot steal from you, and he himself is then no longer a thief. And the more you give, the more you will have to give.

You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.

Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.