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" I take a very long time to write my books - from five to ten years. "

Svetlana Alexievich

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" I love to sit on my own and think, not to be photographed all the time. "

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" A man without a memory is only capable of doing evil, nothing else but evil. "

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" I grew up in a village after the war, and in the village, there were almost only women. "

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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. "

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

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" I have collected the history of 'domestic,' 'indoor' socialism, bit by bit. The history of how it played out in the human soul. I am drawn to that small space called a human being... a single individual. In reality, that is where everything happens. "

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" 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. "

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

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" I want to live at home. You can only write at home. "

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" When I was a child, women spoke to me of how all they had was their memories, how their husbands went to war and never came back, so many tragedies. That chorus of voices filled my consciousness. It was part of life itself. "

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" 'Women's' war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. There are no heroes and incredible feats; there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" I'm not a public person. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" 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. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" 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. "

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" Journalists do not write about human feelings. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" In the West, people demonize Putin. They do not understand that there is a collective Putin, consisting of some millions of people who do not want to be humiliated by the West. There is a little piece of Putin in everyone. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" Reality has always attracted me like a magnet; it tortured and hypnotized me. I wanted to capture it on paper. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" 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. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" Art is always kind of snooping and listening in. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" I believe that in the 21st century, we should arm ourselves with ideas. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" I am a writer who happens to use some tools of journalism. "

Svetlana Alexievich

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

Svetlana Alexievich

" What you have to remember about Belarus is that it's a small state - it has a population of less than 10m people - and like many small states, it has to be very careful about its relationships. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" I don't want to be like other authors and say that there are only a few story lines in literature. A story is like a human face. We have as many stories as human faces. You might have similar facial features, but they're all a little different. "

Svetlana Alexievich

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

Svetlana Alexievich

" My writing is not just all facts and voices. I strive to create a text that works as a sign, pointing out undercurrents that lie beneath the facts. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" 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. "

Svetlana Alexievich

" I couldn't get published for three years. Then the times changed: glasnost, perestroika. So, for three years, I wasn't allowed to publish 'The Unwomanly Face of War,' but then it changed. "

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" 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

" Being in the public eye is easy for me because I come from a family of four generations of teachers, so I'm used to being around books and discussions. But to write, I very much need to be alone. "

Svetlana Alexievich