For me, people are like the black boxes found in the debris of airplane crashes. Svetlana Alexievich

Putin has mobilized and gathered the desires of millions upon millions of people who have been lied to, cheated, who lost out in the new order of things - and in each of these people is a bit of Putin. They have come together to make the image we know as Putin. Putin himself is just the tip of an iceberg. Svetlana Alexievich

Belarus is a closed, authoritarian system, and the theme of Chernobyl is also a closed topic. Svetlana Alexievich

There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on. Svetlana Alexievich

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

I'm not a public person. Svetlana Alexievich

You might say that my work is just simply lying on the ground, and I go and I gather it, and I pick it up, and I put it together. 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

Nothing, not even human life, is more precious to us than our myths about ourselves. Svetlana Alexievich

We were romantics in the 1990s and thought that communism was dead. But 10 years passed, and Putin came, and it became obvious that the process is reversible; that communism will, to varying degrees, return again and again. Svetlana Alexievich

No book about Soviet sacrifice was as strong as the women's stories I heard as a child. 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

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

I don't love great ideas. I love the little human being.  Svetlana Alexievich

We, people of socialism, are not like others. We have our peculiar ideas about heroes and martyrs. Svetlana Alexievich

America is a remarkable country, but I have a feeling that it's a different country after 9/11. Svetlana Alexievich

We need a philosophy for humans and nature to live together. Svetlana Alexievich

All our lives, we fight for certain ideals, and they get diluted, and then we have to fight for them again.  Svetlana Alexievich

The books that I'm writing, you can write them only when you're amongst your people. You're not going to find it on the Internet. You're not going to hear it there. Svetlana Alexievich

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

Communism has not died. We naively thought in the '90s we had buried communism, but this is not true. It is not dead, and it will be coming back.  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. Svetlana Alexievich

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

I used to live in a village, and I always loved listening to old people. Unfortunately, it was always women who were talking, because after the war, very few men were around. I spent my entire life living in the village. The village is always talking about itself; people are talking to each other as the village makes sense of itself. Svetlana Alexievich

I was always meant to study the humanities; I was no good at math or sciences. When it came time for me to work, it was Soviet times, and journalism wasn't that free or interesting of a space. There was a lot of censorship; it was difficult. Svetlana Alexievich

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

I can't rid myself of the feeling that war is a product of the male nature. Share this Quote Svetlana Alexievich I love how humans talk.  Svetlana Alexievich

For me, people are like the black boxes found in the debris of airplane crashes. Svetlana Alexievich

Every one of his characters has their own idea, their own thing they want to express. Dostoevsky just lets them do it. Svetlana Alexievich

Showing just the dark side doesn't always work. The important thing is to show what we can learn from dark things, what good we find there. 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

People always speak beautifully when they are in love or close to death. Svetlana Alexievich

Women are the most denigrated social group in the Soviet Union. The idea of women's emancipation is only a slogan in - but also, I should say, in many places outside - the Soviet Union. But especially in the militaristic Soviet society, people only thought of life in terms of struggle and the workers' toil. Svetlana Alexievich

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

I'm interested in love and in death. Everything evolves from these things. 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

What is life about? Two things: love and death. Svetlana Alexievich

I will never write fiction. Svetlana Alexievich

Journalists do not write about human feelings. Svetlana Alexievich

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. Svetlana Alexievich