Quotes from Sergei Lukyanenko

If there's no ethically correct solution, act irrationally.

When leaders betray their people and the people don't overthrow them, it's not just the leaders who should be blamed.

Tek sad shvativši ironiju slu?aja, po?eh luda?ki da se smejem. Mene su, objekat provokacije Tamnih, sakrili u žensko telo! U Telo šefove ljubavnice, stare kao sabor Bogorodi?ne crkve u Parizu!

Preserve the part of you that's still human. Avoid falling into ecstatic raptures and trying to impose the Light on people when they don't want it. Avoid relapsing into contemptuous cynicism and imagining that you are pure and perfect. That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent. -Gesar

Love is happiness, but only when you believe it will last forever. Even though every time it turns out to be a lie, it's only faith that gives love its strength and its joy.

The common good and the individual good rarely coincide.

Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart." "So what's vodka for?" "For the soul. If it's hurting real bad

An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for and would surely find her.

If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you're already late....

The hardest thing of all is when pain is hidden behind a mask of calm.

If you have love in you, it's a strength. But if you are in love, it's a weakness.

That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.

Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept. And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right. "The common good and the individual good rarely coincide..." Sure, I know, it's true. But some truths are probably worse than lies.

One day you will hear the sound of time rustling as it slips through your fingers like sand. Remember me then. I wish you luck.

We are our own gods and our own demons

Why was is that the Light acted through lies, and the Darkness acted though the truth? Why was is that our truth proved powerless, but lies were effective? And why was the Darkness able to manage perfectly well with truth in order to do Evil?

There are far more reasons for death than there are for life.

A car's not the right place for showing off to a girl—the bed's the place for that. The consequences of a mistake there are more upsetting, but less tragic.

Forgiving was the hardest thing. Sometimes forgiving was the hardest thing in the whole world.

An assassin can be found for every president. And for every prophet there are a thousand interpreters to distort the essence of the religion, to replace the bright flame with the heat of the inquisitors' pyres. The time came when every book was cast into the fire, when every symphony was reduced to a popular tune and played in all the drinking dens. A sound philosophical basis could be set in place under any vile nonsense.

What was my truth worth, if I was prepared to defend the entire world, but not those who were close to me? If I subdued hate, but wouldn't give love a chance?

After all, inside every woman, no matter how grown up she is, there is still a frightened little girl.

In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive.

There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That's what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place.