Twentieth-century Russian Literature Has Produced Nothing Special

Literature Sort Of Makes Your Daily Operation, Your Daily Conduct, The Management Of Your Affairs In The Society A Bit More Complex. And It Puts What You Do In Perspective, And People Don't Like To See Themselves Or Their Activities In Perspective. They Don't Feel Quite Comfortable With That. Nobody Wants To Acknowledge The Insignificance Of His Life, And That Is Very Often The Net Result Of Reading A Poem.

If There Is Anything Good About Exile, It Is That It Teaches One Humility. It Accelerates One’s Drift Into Isolation, An Absolute Perspective. Into The Condition At Which All One Is Left With Is Oneself And One’s Language, With Nobody Or Nothing In Between. Exile Brings You Overnight Where It Would Normally Take A Lifetime To Go.

As A Form Of Moral Insurance, At Least, Literature Is Much More Dependable Than A System Of Beliefs Or A Philosophical Doctrine. Since There Are No Laws That Can Protect Us From Ourselves, No Criminal Code Is Capable Of Preventing A True Crime Against Literature; Though We Can Condemn The Material Suppression Of Literature - The Persecution Of Writers, Acts Of Censorship, The Burning Of Books - We Are Powerless When It Comes To Its Worst Violation: That Of Not Reading The Books. For That Crime, A Person Pays With His Whole Life; If The Offender Is A Nation, It Pays With Its History.

Perhaps Art Is Simply An Organism's Reaction Against Its Retentive Limitations.

Poems, Novels - These Things Belong To The Nation, To The Culture And The People. They've Been Stolen From The People And Now The Stolen Things Are Being Returned To Their Owners, But I Don't Think Their Owners Should Be Grateful To Receive Them.