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" 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. "

Svetlana Alexievich

Myself

Mother

Father

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" To be in conflict with the authorities is one thing. We Russian writers have got used to that. But to be in conflict with your own people - that is truly terrible. "

" 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 love the lone human voice. It is my greatest love and passion. "

" We were romantics in the 1990s and thought that communism was dead. But 10 years passed, and Putin came, and it became obvious that the process is reversible; that communism will, to varying degrees, return again and again. "

" The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being. "

" My father was an important person, the director of the school. He could talk to anybody - simple or educated. He liked chess, fishing, and beautiful women. "

" We are all prisoners of the ideas of the times we live in. "

" 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. "

" What is life about? Two things: love and death. "

" I've known since I was five that I wanted to be a writer. "

" I love how humans talk. "

" I'm interested in little people. 'The little, great people' is how I would put it, because suffering expands people. "

" I write my books at moments of shock. I meet people in extremis and their stories are highly emotionally charged. "

" The books that I'm writing, you can write them only when you're amongst your people. You're not going to find it on the Internet. You're not going to hear it there. "

" I can't rid myself of the feeling that war is a product of the male nature. "

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

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

" I don't think we should be deceived that art is such a moral thing. "

" Many times, I have been shocked and frightened by human beings. I have experienced delight and revulsion. I have sometimes wanted to forget what I heard, to return to a time when I lived in ignorance. More than once, however, I have seen the sublime in people and wanted to cry. "

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

" I'm interested in love and in death. Everything evolves from these things. "

" In the post-Soviet era, instead of freedom, various stripes of autocratic-totalitarianism have flourished: Russian, Belarusian, Kazakh... We are finding our way out from under the debris of the 'Red Empire' slowly and tentatively. "

" 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. "

Svetlana Alexievich

People

History

" I see the world as voices, as colors, as it were. From book to book, I change, the subjects change, but the narrative thread remains the same. "

" 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. "

" Journalists do not write about human feelings. "

" I will never write fiction. "

" 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. "

" It's very important to listen when someone is speaking up. I always keep my ear to the ground. "

Svetlana Alexievich

Always

Important