41
" I'm afraid, Ilya Isayevich, that you don't have the slightest idea what the function of the secret police is. Exhibits disappear from libraries, personal archives, from museums. They are stolen, sold, exchanged, sometimes consciously destroyed. But I can assure you, in the archives of the secret police nothing is ever lost. True, the number of people granted access to them is extremely limited. But, believe me, there is no place more reliable for safekeeping. Nothing every goes missing there! Moreover, it is the very place where historical truth is preserved. "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , The Big Green Tent
44
" Всю жизнь меня занимает тема личной свободы. Она всегда представлялась мне высшим благом. Возможно, что за долгую жизнь мне удалось сделать несколько шагов в направлении свободы, но с чем мне определённо не удалось справиться, от чего я не смог освободиться, — это национальность. Я не смог перестать быть евреем. Еврейство навязчиво и авторитарно, проклятый горб и прекрасный дар, оно диктует логику и образ мыслей, сковывает и пеленает. Оно неотменимо, как пол. Еврейство ограничивает свободу. Я всегда хотел выйти за его пределы — выходил, шёл куда угодно, по другим дорогам, десять, двадцать, тридцать лет, но обнаруживал в какой-то момент, что никуда не пришёл. "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya
45
" When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone’s equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation. “You see, the birth of the One whom "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , Даниэль Штайн, переводчик
46
" Te-ai făcut mai deştept în ultimul cincinal, frăţioare literat. Poţi să defineşti imago în cazul ăsta precis, adică să defineşti ce înseamnă o fiinţă matură? Care sunt criteriile pentru vârsta adultă?
Nu doar capacitatea de reproducere. Poate simţul responsabilităţii? Spiritul de independenţă? Gradul de conştiinţă?
— Criterii calitative, şi nu cantitative! Asta-i, zise Kolesnik. Uite la ce ajungi cu raţionamentul tău: iniţierea e un lucru greu de determinat, cât despre responsabilitate, cum o măsori? Şi după tine, o larvă umană se transformă în imago printr-un proces de iniţiere?
Viktor Iulievici insistă:
— Trăim într-o societate de larve, de oameni imaturi, de adolescenţi cu mască de adulţi, pricepi Mişka? "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya
50
" Some marriages are made in bed, while others burgeon in the kitchen to the metallic music of the kitchen knife and the egg whisk; some couples are nest builders, forever redecorating, snapping up bargain lots of timber for their dacha plot, nails, drying oil, and fiberglass wrap; other couples live for blazing, set-piece rows.
Masha and Alik’s marriage was consummated in conversations. This was their ninth year together, but every evening when he came home from work, the soup would be left to get cold and the rissoles to burn while they told each other about the important events of the day. "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , Medea and Her Children
51
" She had been degraded by her husband, betrayed by her sister, abused by fate itself, which had denied her children while the child fathered by her husband, the child that by rights was hers, had been placed in her sister’s relaxed and fun-loving body. The gloom in her soul was made deeper also by the fact that Medea, who had always been on the move herself, was being forced to sit for days at a time by this window where all the movement was outside, in the rolling by of the changing scenery through the window and, to some extent, in the restless movement of other people in the railway carriage. "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , Medea and Her Children
56
" Всю жизнь меня занимает тема личной свободы. Оно всегда представлялась мне высщим благом. Возможно, что за долгую жизнь мне удалось сделать нескольло щагов в направлении свободы, но с чем мне определенно не удалось справиться, от чего я не смог освободиться,- ето национальность. Я не смог перестать быть евреем. Еврейство навязчиво и авторитарно, проклятый горб и прекрасный дар, оно диктует логику и образ мыслей,сковывает и пеленает. Оно неотменино, как пол. Еврейство ограничивает свободу. Я всегда хотел выти за его пределы- выходил, щел куда угодно, по другим дорогам, десять, двадцать, тридцать лет, но обнаруживал в какой-то момунт, что никуда не прищел. "
― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , Даниэль Штайн, переводчик