Ian

“Arkady was an Investigator of Special Cases, and if a bear running loose in the heart of Moscow was not a special case, he didn't know what was.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma

“In hindsight, Khrushchev stands out as a rare case of a nuclear optimist. His nuclear brinkmanship was exceptionally crude and aggressive, reckless and ideology-driven. The architect of the New Look played hardball. But he relied more on his instincts than on strategic calculations. And he was not a master of diplomatic compromise. His improvisations, lack of tact, rudeness, and spontaneity let him down, after several strokes of luck. His ideological beliefs, coupled with his emotional vacillations between insecurity and overconfidence, made him a failure as a negotiator.”
― Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev

“[T]here is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Before there is science, there are stories to explain the world. They make it happier somehow.”
― Georgia Scott, American Girl: Memories That Made Me