One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk.
How can the confessor teach/ those who are lost and sick at heart,/ when he himself, among the sinners,/ is worst, and most forsaken?/ It is only a game we play/ with other people's sins./ Besides, everyone knows/ that everyone lies confessing.
Instead of wisdom -- experience, bare, That does not slake thirst, is not wet. Youth's gone -- like a Sunday prayer. Is it mine to forget? On how many desert roads have searched I With him who wasn't dear for me, How many bows gave in church I For him, who had well loved me. I've become more oblivious than inviting, Quietly years swim. Lips unkissed, eyes unsmiling -- Nothing will give me back him.
Like a white stone at the bottom of the well, One memory lies in me. I cannot and I do not want to struggle, It is both joy and suffering. I think that anyone who looks into my Eyes will all at once see him. More sad and pensive he'll become That heard the story of this suffering. I know that the gods had turned People to objects, without killing mind, That divine sadness lived eternally. You're turned into my memory, I find.
I'm Russian: I'm into men, diamonds, and caviar.
Chechnya is part and parcel of the Russian Federation.
The Russian parliament has condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
My father's a diplomat. He speaks Russian.
No, my family is Russian, Georgian, via Ellis Island.
Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.
Scratch a Russian, and you'll find a peasant.
I'm not superstitious at all. I'm not a Russian.
I'm very inspired by the artfulness and soulfulness of the Russian people.
