25 Quotes by Sergei Dovlatov

We are not better than native born Americans, and of course not smarter. We’ve just been to the last stop of this bus.

There’s a reason every book, even one that isn’t very serious, is shaped like a suitcase.

We didn’t raise our daughter, we merely loved her.

Don’t think love has sizes. It either is or isn’t.

No point in arguing. But of course I argued.

If Hemingway is to believed, poverty is an invaluable school for a writer. Poverty makes a man clear-sighted. And so on. It’s interesting that Hemingway realized this only when he became rich.

Stop thinking. I’ve stopped some 15 years ago. Otherwise, if you will be thinking you won’t want to live. Everyone who thinks is unhappy.

Sales were lukewarm. Back home there was no freedom, but there were readers. Here there was freedom enough, but readers were missing.

I looked at the empty suitcase. On the bottom was Karl Marx. On the lid was Brodsky. And between them, my lost, precious, only life.