The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn - 9/19
Human nature has not enough time to follow everything going on around it. An artist has to be placed at some distance from his object. If he just sets down his momentary impressions, it will be more like an essay, a piece of reporting, than a work of art.

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn - 4/19
Fear of death obscures the mind unless you attain a state, when you lose all fear, and deliver yourself unto God's will. Death is a natural transition from one state to another.

live in union with nature... Too many people of my age are already gone. It creates a feeling of a semi-desert. Still other people, other ages, you recall them one by one, and where are they all? They are no more, and you miss them.

All religions are against cruelty, all of them, but cruelty remains. That's what they are for: so that men can have a shield, a brake.

Greed destroys the human race. Greed destroys everybody.

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn 3/19
We spend the greater part of our life in action. And action prevents us from a quiet understanding of any nuances in life. Old age gives some extra space for the soul to grasp it all. This is why we don't always have the right to bear judgement on other's acts. Just because we understand men who didn't understand their own acts, as they had neither the time, nor the circumstances to do so.

The Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn 2/19
Lies can withstand many thing in the world, but not art.
Lies and violence are interlaced.