A Quote by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Russian writers enjoy almost sacred status. — © Simon Sebag Montefiore
Russian writers enjoy almost sacred status.
It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture to agree with the sacred writers.
The people have already determined Chechnya's status at the referendum - it is a unit of the Russian Federation. Its political status is not to be discussed any more.
It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.
Living in a cultural milieu where the foreign writers most widely available and admired were Russian, I came very late to postwar American writers, and I had great trouble with the canonically exalted white male writers I tried first.
Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.
I took a 19th-century Russian novel class in college and have been smitten with Russian literature ever since. Writers like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Grossman, and Solzhenitsyn tackle the great questions of morality, politics, love, and death.
I lived next to Russian soldiers. We had Russian army guys in our house when I grew up. We made lemonade for them; they were everywhere. I had a Russian school. I grew up with Russian traditions, I know Russian songs... it infiltrates me a lot. I even speak a little Russian.
When the East Timor conflict broke out, when they gained independence, the militia killed a lot of East Timorese people. And their sacred totem is the crocodile. They believe that their island is actually a solidified crocodile, so it has sacred status.
The 1960s was a period when writers in the West began to be aware of the extraordinary eloquence and popular attraction of the Russian poets such as Yevtushenko and Voznesensky - oppositional figures who could draw crowds. The Russian poets recited from memory as a matter of course.
I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.
For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull.
From the animist point of view, humans belong in a sacred place because they themselves are sacred. Not sacred in a special way, not more sacred than anything else, but merely as sacred as anything else -- as sacred as bison or salmon or crows or crickets or bears or sunflowers.
Earthly families all look different. And while we do the best we can to create strong traditional families, membership in the family of God is not contingent upon any kind of status - marital status, parental status, financial status, social status, or even the kind of status we post on social media.
Visas represent one bureaucratic obstacle, so to say and, if removed, might increase the inflow of Russian money into the Czech economy. And not only Russian money, but Russian tourists, Russian entrepreneurs and so on.
The effect of sanctions on the Russian economy are clear to everybody, first to the Russians and to the Russian leadership, and the surroundings of the Russian leadership, the circle that is close to the Russian political leadership.
I rarely talk about work with writers, and I love getting together with writers. I think writers are great to get together with, because we can talk about everything. I think that's why I enjoy it. Writers tend to be pretty open-minded, and pretty profane and loose. They have fun minds.
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