"If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch."

--

Source : "Gary Shteyngart: 'Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system'". Interview with Peter Conrad, www.theguardian.com. September 4, 2010.

Gary Shteyngart

#Russia Quotes #Stills Quotes

“We're going to be okay." Here's the thing about being a spy: sometimes all you have are your lies. They protect your cover and keep your secrets, and right then I needed to believe that it was true even when all the facts said otherwise.”
“I would prefer every [American] state keep the definition of marriage that's prevailed in Western civilization for a couple thousand years.”
“As far as the Russians were concerned, I felt the reverse; they had adequate gold, if they wanted to buy, and they weren't dependent upon international trade. I felt they were more self-sufficient.”
“After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.”

Source : "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom". Book by Andrew Dickson White, Vol.1, Ch.1: The Visible Universe, p. 57, 1896.
“Sometimes we can choose the paths we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.”
“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.”
“Sometimes, I genuinely enjoy having conversations with journalists; enjoying the few moments of intimacy with a stranger is fascinating to me. But once in a while that backfires and you're suddenly reading something that has a bent on it that you didn't feel was in the least bit a part of the conversation that you thought you were having. Then you get overly protective and say very little and then you come out of the hole again.”
“Of course [I'm a feminist]. And everyone I know is a feminist.”

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