Russian Literature Quotes

• Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Two, Special, Stories

  60 Copy quote

• I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Education, Hygiene, Forever

  "The Oak and the Calf". Book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1980.

  56 Copy quote

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• The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Heart, Literature, Tradition

  56 Copy quote

• I read Russian literature a lot.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Literature

  10 Copy quote

• All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Inspirational, Funny, Family

  Anna Karenina pt. 1, ch. 1 (1875 - 1877) (translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude) See Susan Cheever 1

  89 Copy quote

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• We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Gogol, Overcoat

  8 Copy quote

• I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

  Vladimir Putin

  Reading, Literature, Chekhov

  8 Copy quote

• Russian literature, like colonial Canadian literature, comes with a lot of landscape backdrop.

  Robert Bringhurst

  Literature

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

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• I think that Indian writing in English is a really peculiar beast. I can't think of any literature - perhaps Russian literature in the nineteenth century comes close - so exclusively produced by and closely identified with a tiny but powerful ruling elite, the upper-caste, Anglophone upper middle class, and dependent for so long on book buyers and readers elsewhere.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Powerful, Book, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Persecution mania is still around. In your writing, in your exchanges with people, meeting people who are in Russian affairs, Russian literature, etcetera.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Writing, People, Etcetera

  Joseph Brodsky, Cynthia L. Haven (2002). “Joseph Brodsky: Conversations”, p.80, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  9 Copy quote

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• That is almost the whole of Russian literature: the phenomenal coruscations of the souls of quite commonplace people.

  D. H. Lawrence

  People, Soul, Literature

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.8753, Delphi Classics

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• Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one... ...I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favourite author, and he is the one - I still think - who writes most honestly about human existence.

  Akira Kurosawa

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  12 Copy quote

• It`s the only time my education has come in remotely handy. -on using her Russian literature studies for copying her "Van Helsing" script into Russian to acquire a Slavic accent.

  Kate Beckinsale

  Copying, Literature, Scripts

  4 Copy quote

• The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide.

  Christopher Moore

  Suicide, Country, Art

  23 Copy quote

• I hadn't planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  School, Law, Literature

  5 Copy quote

• The greatest books in Russian literature are satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, is a very over-the-top satire about life in Russia. I think it's the thing we do best.

  Gary Shteyngart

  Book, Thinking, Soul

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Russia is a place of great culture. If you've read Tolstoy's "War and Peace", Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Chekhov...the culture of the great Russian literature is amazing. The human narrative you get out of "War and Peace" is universal.

  Andre Leon Talley

  War, Russia, Culture

  Source: wwd.com

  8 Copy quote

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• The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.

  Nikolai Berdyaev

  Real, Meaning Of Life, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• Most British playwrights of my generation, as well as younger folks, apparently feel somewhat obliged to Russian literature - and not only those writing for theatres. Russian literature is part of the basic background knowledge for any writer. So there is nothing exceptional in the interest I had towards Russian literature and theatre. Frankly, I couldn't image what a culture would be like without sympathy towards Russian literature and Russia, whether we'd be talking about drama or Djagilev.

  Tom Stoppard

  Drama, Writing, Russia

  Source: news.postimees.ee

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• Russian literature saved my soul.  When I was a young girl in school and I asked what is good and what is evil, no one in that corrupt system could show me.

  Irina Ratushinskaya

  Girl, School, Evil

  12 Copy quote