I Was Always Optimistic. And I Held

We Hear A Constant Clamor For Rights, Rights, Always Rights, But So Very Little About Responsibility. And We Have Forgotten God. The Need Now Is For Selflessness, For A Spirit Of Sacrifice, For A Willingness To Put Aside Personal Gains For The Salvation Of The Whole Western World.

Human Nature Is Full Of Riddles And Contradictions; Its Very Complexity Engenders Art-and By Art I Mean The Search For Something More Than Simple Linear Formulations, Flat Solutions, Oversimplified Explanations.

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

The Clock Of Communism Has Stopped Striking. But Its Concrete Building Has Not Yet Come Crashing Down. For That Reason, Instead Of Freeing Ourselves, We Must Try To Save Ourselves From Being Crushed By Its Rubble.

The Belly Is An Ungrateful Wretch, It Never Remembers Past Favors, It Always Wants More Tomorrow.