“All literature has this moral strain, but in Russian literature, it's ...” — Keith Gessen Quote

All literature has this moral strain, but in Russian literature, it's particularly sharp.

People who can't speak Russian will be less susceptible to Russian propaganda. But they will also be less susceptible to the poetry of Joseph Brodsky.

My grandmother was content to sit in the back yard wearing her old, wide-brimmed summer hat and occasionally getting up to feed herself raspberries from the seemingly inexhaustible bushes.

I grew up in this household where reading was the most noble thing you could do. When I was a teenager, we would have family dinners where we all sat there reading. It wasn't because we didn't like each other. We just liked reading. The person who made my reading list until my late teen years was my mom.

I'm not a Russian sympathizer, but after being in Russia for that long many years... like, look... they way they think isn't wrong, it's just different.

I think the Russian way of boxing and training goes straight to winning and less to heart and emotion.

Russian writers enjoy almost sacred status.

I'm not superstitious at all. I'm not a Russian.

Russian people are not stupid. They know that the system we are living in is undemocratic.