136 Quotes by Masha Gessen

I do a very good impersonation of an American - I went to high school here - but I've spent most of my life in Russia.

Most Russians believe they've never met an LGBT person in their lives. Also they immediately see LGBT people as 'other,' lending to the success of singling the group out as a 'problem.'

The most difficult and, in some ways, the most rewarding thing I've ever been through was emigrating as a teenager.

I wanted to show something that Americans don't usually think about when they think about Russia, which is the extreme stratification of Soviet society.

The thing about the Russian secret police and the Soviet secret police is that one never leaves the secret police. Once a KGB man, always a KGB man.

Hate has a great unifying potential.

It seems that probably Putin's father maintained some connection to the secret police throughout his life. One sign of that is that they had a telephone, and people didn't have telephones in the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

Abstracted hatred is incredibly potent. There's never the risk of having it challenged by the reality of living human beings.

Trump very much wants to be liked by Putin and I think sincerely admires him. Putin doesn't know how to deal with somebody who positions himself like that.