Andrew Cooper

“Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“I heard nothing, but ever more clearly as the light of the half-moon grew sharper, I thought I could make out a dark shape, and soon, as it came nearer, I saw it. It sat on a horse, a high-boned, haggard white horse. A dark mantle fluttered across the figure's shoulders, and as he flew past, two burning eyes stared at me out of a pale face.”
― Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter: Novelle

“Fiction, in a less direct way, will teach me, teach me things I would never learn had I not opened myself to them in story.”
― Madeline L'engle

“The Elm Log
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn

We were sawing firewood when we picked up an elm log and gave a cry of amazement. It was a full year since we had chopped down the trunk, dragged it along behind a tractor and sawn it up into logs, which we had then thrown on to barges and wagons, rolled into stacks and piled up on the ground - and yet this elm log had still not given up! A fresh green shoot had sprouted from it with a promise of a thick, leafy branch, or even a whole new elm tree.

We placed the log on the sawing-horse, as though on an executioner's block, but we could not bring ourselves to bite into it with our saw. How could we? That log cherished life as dearly as we did; indeed, its urge to live was even stronger than ours.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Stories and Prose Poems