Alexander Belov Quotes

“Good-bye, my moonsong and my breath, my white nights and golden days, my fresh water and my fire. Good-bye, and may you find a better life, find comfort again and your breathless smile, and when your beloved face lights up once more at the Western sunrise, be sure what I felt for you was not in vain. Good-bye and have faith, my Tatiana.”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman

“If there is God, I thought...Please some day let me make love to this girl while she wears that dress." "Oh..." "Tatiasha...isn't it nice to know there is a God?”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman

“Lowering his voice, he said, "In America we have a custom. When you're given presents for your birthday, you're supposed to open them and say thank you."
Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. "Thank you." Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.
"No. Open first. Then say thank you."
She smiled. "What do I do? Do I take the paper off?"
"Yes. You tear it off."
"And then what?"
"And then you throw it away."
"The whole present or just the paper?"
Slowly he said, "Just the paper."
"But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?"
"It's just paper."
"If it's just paper, why did you wrap it?"
"Will you please just open my present?" said Alexander”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman

“He yanked up a couple of mushrooms. "Tania, can we eat these?"
Taking them out of his hands and throwing them back on the ground, Tatiana said, "Yes. But we will only be able to eat them once.”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman

“Alexander: “First we will send the frontovik into the streets with guns. When they are dead, we will send me, with a tank, like the one you’ve been making me. When I’m dead, all the barricades down, all the weapons and tanks gone, they will send you with a rock.”

Tania: “And when I’m dead?”

Alexander: “You’re the last line of defense. When you’re dead, Hitler will march through Leningrad the way he marched through Paris. Do you remember that?”

Tania: “That’s not fair the French didn’t fight”

Alexander: “The didn’t fight Tania, but you will fight. For every street and for every building. And when you lose —”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman

“The iron fettering on the gate read "Arbeit Macht Frei".
"What do you think that means?" asked a man from behind them in line.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here," replied Alexander.
"No," said Misnoy. "It means, 'Work will set you free,'"
"Like I was saying."
Misnoy laughed. "This must be a Class One camp. For political prisoners. Probably Sachsenhausen. In Buchenwald, the engraving didn't say that. It was for more serious, more permanent offenders."
"Like you?"
"Like me." He smiled pleasantly. "Buchenwald read, 'Jeden das Seine. To Each His Own.'"
"The Germans are so fucking inspiring," said Alexander.”
― Paullina Simons, Tatiana and Alexander

“What were you doing fighting with me at Kirov, knowing all this was stacked against us?

Raging against my fate.”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman