The air of one’s native country is the most healthy air. - Anton Chekhov

Byelokurov . . . began a long-winded disquisition on the malady of the age -- pessimism. He talked confidently, in a tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know when he will go.

Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.

Who but a stupid barbarian could burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make?