In countries where there is a mild climate, less effort is expended on the struggle with nature and man is kinder and more gentle. - Anton Chekhov

Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.

It doesn’t matter that your painting is small. Kopecks are also small, but when a lot are put together they make a ruble. Each painting displayed in a gallery and each good book that makes it into a library, no matter how small they may be, serve a great cause: accretion of the national wealth.

What she can't get into her narrow mind is that we're above such things as love. Our whole aim - the whole sense of our life - is to avoid petty illusions that stop us being free and happy. On, on, on!