480 Quotes About Russia

— А я ось, знаєте, — каже Зінуля, — буває, прокинуся вранці і думаю, чому тобі, Зінка, так пощастило, що ти народилась не де-небудь, а в Росії, найкращій країні. Ви згодні зі мною?[...]— Я-то згоден, — сказав я. Але був один чоловік, який вважав інакше. Він сказав: "Здогадав мене чорт з моїм розумом і талантом народитися в Росії".— І хто був цей дурень?— Пушкін [93].

I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present frame of mind might never change.

But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

And suddenly it struck me that walking the length of Nevsky Prospekt was like walking the length of Russian literature. Right there at the beginning—just off the avenue on the Moika embankment—is the house where Pushkin ended his years. A few paces on are the rooms where Gogol began Dead Souls. Then the National Library, where Tolstoy scoured the archives. And here, behind the cemetery walls, lies brother Fyodor, our restless witness of the human soul entombed beneath the cherry trees.

To be a Russian writer at the end of the nineteenth century must have meant bearing an inescapably bitter fate. The more they tried to escape from Russia, the more deeply Russia swallowed them.

It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire [95].

After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say “Russia!” to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, “How much?” We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.

Путин приказал отвести глаза от украинской границы.

Мать в другой комнате перешивала мне пальто к зиме. Она вышла, глянула в газету.— Не верю я ничему, — пробормотала она. — Кошмар какой-то. Не было хороших царей. Убивали все от Святослава до Сталина.— Про Сталина забудь, дурная! — весело сказал дед. — И ныне, и присно, и во веки веков. Будет хороший царь.— Нет, — сказала мать. Может где-нибудь на Мадагаскаре, в Америке, в Австралии, только не в России. В России — нет [42].