Quotes

Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it's important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person. The whole idea of empathy is gone. We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.

[W]hat I think Ray Bradbury was concerned about [in "Fahrenheit 451" ] a future without books, not just an authoritarian government that burns books but a world where people don't actually want to read.

I've seen Fox News a couple of times. It's a nice transition from the Pravda of yesteryear. It's a party line without a party.

American fiction is good. It would be nice if somebody read it.

How could one not write about today? It's so fascinating. When civilization takes a nose dive, how can you look away? You've got to be there. You've got to be at the bottom of the swimming pool taking notes.

[on his watching Gilligan's Island (1964) as an immigrant child] "Is it really possible that a country as powerful as the United States would not be able to locate two of its best citizen lost at sea, to wit, the millionaire and his wife?

I don't know any Russian boy of my generation who hasn't met the back of his father's hand. That may sound horrible to people from Santa Monica, but that's the way we grew up. When my father stopped smacking me around, it was sad for me because I thought, He doesn't love me at all now, not only to the point of correcting my behavior.

[on why he is writing his memoir, 2014] Well, I'm 41, which is 67 in Russian years, so I feel like time is passing me by. I need to get this out before the heart attack, the stroke and the exploding liver that many Russians have at this age.