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“...after three years of war, a death from disease, even if it befell a public figure, had ceased being an event worth talking about.”
― Oksana Zabuzhko, Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories

“I started learning English from Abuelo Jorge's old grammar textbooks. I found them in Abuelo Celia's closet. They date back to 1919, the first year he started working for the American Electric Broom Company. At school, only a few students were allowed to learn English, by special permission. The rest of us had to learn Russian. I liked the curves of the Cyrillic letters, their unexpected sounds. I liked the way my name looked: Иван. I took Russian for nearly two years at school. My teacher, Sergey Mikoyan, praised me highly. He said I had an ear for languages, that if I studied hard I could be a translator for world leaders. It was true I could repeat anything he said, even tongue twisters like kolokololiteyshchiki perekolotili vikarabkavshihsya vihuholey "the church bell casters slaughtered the desmans that had scrambled out." He told me I had a gift, like playing the violin, or mastering chess.”
― Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban

“Understanding, in fact, is my job, that's what writers are for--to try to understand everyone and everything and put this understanding into words, finished to the gossamer fineness of a rose petal, words made supple and obedient, words cut to hold the reader's mind like a well-made glove that fits like second skin.”
― Oksana Zabuzhko, Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories

“It occurred to me then that if one went looking for a single image of this revolution, for our own Liberty Leading the People, the young beauty with the orange carnation facing the shields of the riot police would not do no matter how awesome she looked on posters—it would have to be that hunched-over, inconceivably old, indestructible, and uncowed old lady from the Maidan, with her three cupfuls of hot tea—Here, children, warm yourselves, God bless you. Now, that would be the real truth about us, but who’d ever want that old flesh to be their revolution’s allegory?”
― Oksana Zabuzhko, Your Ad Could Go Here: Stories