She was clothed entirely in two large swatches of leather, the leather fake and shiny in a self-mocking way, absolutely correct for 1993, the first year when mocking the mainstream had become the mainstream.
Inside my soul a treasure is buried. The key is mine and only mine. How right you are, you drunken monster! I know: the truth is in the wine. ("The Unknown Lady")
The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water A woman's shriek assaults the ear While above, in the sky, inured to everything, The moon looks on with a mindless leer ("The Unknown Lady")
Beyond the lake the waning moon has slowed, And stands there like a window open wide Into a hushed and brightly lit abode Where something dreadful has occurred inside.
Tahtahta-ha-ha' clattered the wheels. A lamp outside the window nodded to him. Another. A third. The lamps ceased to wink. Night without winking clung to the windows. ("Adam")
For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we k...
The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don't know. My Russian accent isn't that great, and the muscles aren't that big and t...
I can't understand Urdu, Bahasa or Russian, but when the Pakistani Faiz, the Indonesian Rendra and the Russian Rosdentvensky declaim, I can feel the living throb of rhythm and music, the warmth and passion of their poetry, as do the hundreds, not a m...
[first lines] Man cleaning doorknob: Thirty thousand. Maid: From the Russians? Man cleaning doorknob: No, from the French. From the Russians we capture more than that every day.
Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence ...
It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pi...
So age after age — will it be soon, O Lord? — Beneath the scalpel of nature and art, Our spirit screams, our flesh depletes itself, Giving birth to an organ for the sixth sense. ("The Sixth Sense")
The mirror's light sparks in the eyes, And horrified, my lids drawn tight, I step back to that realm of night Where not a single exit lies... (Untitled: "I pass away this life of mine...")
Their notion of training was to march the men up and down in parades and reviews: these were nice to look at and gave them the impression of military discipline and precision, but as a preparation for a modern war they had no value whatsoever.
There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, lo...
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.
I know a few expressions. I know what Hilary Clinton basically says in Russian when you translate her into Russian over and over and over is, 'izvinite pozhaluista.' That's, 'excuse me please, excuse me please.' Let's reset things. That's not the way...
I have a Russian heart.
The relationship between a Russian and a bottle of vodka is almost mystical.
Avi: [in Doug's office while trying to find Boris] Russians. [he chuckles] Avi: Russians. I should've known. Anti-Semite, slippery Cossack sluts. What do you know about this goyim? Bullet Tooth Tony: Ex-KGB cancer. He was a highly trained undercover ...
The boycott of parliamentary institutions on the part of anarchists and semianarchists is dictated by a desire not to submit their weakness to a test on the part of the masses, thus preserving their right to an inactive hauteur which makes no differe...
