Quotes from Svetlana Alexievich

Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear. When I walk down the street and catch words, phrases, and exclamations, I always think - how many novels disappear without a trace! Disappear into darkness.

There is this tradition, stretching back to Tacitus and Plutarch, that history belongs to the heroes, the emperors. But I grew up among simple people, and their stories just shattered me. It was painful that no one but me was listening to them.

There are horrible periods in which entire nations sink into the plague of darkness and hatred.

Journalists do not write about human feelings.

Lukashenko is very much like Trump, because democracy and Trump are incompatible things.

We, people of socialism, are not like others. We have our peculiar ideas about heroes and martyrs.

In apartments and cottages, on the street and in the train... I listen... More and more, I turn into one large ear, always turning to another person.

We thought we'd leave communism behind, and everything would turn out fine. But it turns out you can't leave this and become free, because these people don't understand what freedom is.

No book about Soviet sacrifice was as strong as the women's stories I heard as a child.

I was always meant to study the humanities; I was no good at math or sciences. When it came time for me to work, it was Soviet times, and journalism wasn't that free or interesting of a space. There was a lot of censorship; it was difficult.

Nobody thought the Soviet Union would collapse; it was a shock for everyone.

What I'm concerned with is what I would call the missing history - the invisible imprint of our stay on Earth and in time.

Hatred will always give birth to more and more hate, and love has the power to demolish the borders between us.

I don't hate. I love the Russian people. I love the Belarusan people... I love Ukraine very much.

I was born in a big city - Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine - but when I was a child, my father moved us back to his homeland in Minsk.

I have three homes: my Belarusian land, the homeland of my father, where I have lived my whole life; Ukraine, the homeland of my mother, where I was born; and Russia's great culture, without which I cannot imagine myself. All are very dear to me.

My Ukrainian grandmother would tell amazing stories. She lost her father, and as children, we would always listen to her stories.

I collect the everyday life of feelings, thoughts, and words. I collect the life of my time.

I love the good Russian world, the humanitarian Russian world, but I do not love the Russian world of Beria, Stalin, and Shoigu.

Stalin's machine can be started up again at only a moment's notice: the same informers, the same denunciations, the same tortures. The same universal, all-devouring terror.

Women tell things in more interesting ways. They live with more feeling. They observe themselves and their lives. Men are more impressed with action. For them, the sequence of events is more important.

Humans have occupied a position in nature that they should not. It is impossible for humans to conquer nature.

Freedom is not an instantaneous holiday, as we once dreamed. It is a road. A long road. We know this now.

Why do I write? I have been called a writer of catastrophes, but that isn't true. I am always looking for words of love. Hate will not save us. Only love.