The Fact That We Are Living Does

As A Form Of Moral Insurance, At Least, Literature Is Much More Dependable Than A System Of Beliefs Or A Philosophical Doctrine. Since There Are No Laws That Can Protect Us From Ourselves, No Criminal Code Is Capable Of Preventing A True Crime Against Literature; Though We Can Condemn The Material Suppression Of Literature - The Persecution Of Writers, Acts Of Censorship, The Burning Of Books - We Are Powerless When It Comes To Its Worst Violation: That Of Not Reading The Books. For That Crime, A Person Pays With His Whole Life; If The Offender Is A Nation, It Pays With Its History.

Twentieth-century Russian Literature Has Produced Nothing Special Except Perhaps One Novel And Two Stories By Andrei Platonov, Who Ended His Days Sweeping Streets.

I'm A Bad Jew, A Bad Russian, A Bad Everything.

When The Eye Fails To Find Beauty-alias Solace-it Commands The Body To Create It, Or, Failing That, Adjusts Itself To Perceive Virtue In Ugliness.

Life—the Way It Really Is—is A Battle Not Between Good And Bad, But Between Bad And Worse