Tatyana Tolstaya Quotes

#1. Art has nothing to do with politics. It is the freest thing in the world.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#2. I don't want to deal with big, grand themes in my stories; art has nothing to do with themes. When you deal with themes, you are not creating; you are lecturing.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#3. I don't think people are fools, and I think they deserve a good attitude and smart entertainment.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#4. If there is a pattern, it will come back - maybe in Russia more than anywhere else, because it has collapsed so many times. Maybe less so here in the States, because here the society is so young.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#5. In Russia, people suffer from the stillness of time.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#6. The best time is always yesterday.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#7. Politics disappears; it vanishes. What remains constant is human life. So I try to develop a perspective in my writing where politics is just one of the pieces of furniture in this furnished world. It is not the purpose. It is not the goal.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#8. People know that I am a very good author. But they would rather read what I have to say about the next election.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#9. For us, the best time is always yesterday.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#10. The world may perish, but the meat grinder is indestructible. (112)

Tatyana Tolstaya

#11. That's what poems are for, so you don't understand a thing.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#12. I am interested in the subject which is Russia.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#13. If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship, this pressure produces diamonds.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#14. And wanting nothing, regretting nothing, Peters smiled gratefully at life - running past, indifferent, ungrateful, treacherous, mocking, meaningless, alien - marvelous, marvelous, marvelous.

Tatyana Tolstaya

#15. I have enough energy to insist on saying what I think.

Tatyana Tolstaya