In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.

Underground literature only began in the '70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle.

Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people's only source of knowledge about the world.

The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured.

There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.

He killed his enemies because he was afraid they would kill him. Amin ordered entire tribes to be put to death, because he feared they would rebel.

Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve.

Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives.

I'll tell you what colonial experience is.

Conditions were so hard. To send the news out, telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence to send after he arrived.

When is a crisis reached? When questions arise that can't be answered.

There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.

I remember in 1978 meeting two Ugandan captains in the hotel talking Russian. They had been educated in Moscow and since they came from different Ugandan peoples, it was the only way they could understand one another.

Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.

Amin is the shame of the whole world. The fact that he managed to rule so long and commit so many crimes was only possible thanks to the hypocrisy of the East and the West who were waging the Cold War for world domination.

I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.

Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.

Amin managed to invite both the US and Soviet ambassadors to his palace at the very same time and then deliberately kept them together in his waiting room.

The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.

People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.

Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.

This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.

The Cold War in Africa is one of the darkest, most disgraceful pages in contemporary history, and everybody ought to be ashamed.

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.

Amin hid nothing. Everybody knew everything. Yet the American Senate only introduced a resolution breaking off trade with Amin three months before his overthrow.

There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.

My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.

When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.

We have such a mixture now, such a fusion of different genres.

Amin knew that neither West nor East would criticize him for fear that he would support the other side. He felt he was untouchable and he said so openly.

I'm trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing.

In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.

The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.

The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.

When man meets an obstacle he cant destroy he destroys himself.

Oil creates the illusion of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free. Oil is a resource that anaesthetises thought, blurs vision, corrupts.

Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physicain should not be influenced by such judgements.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Most of my adult life I had this towering contempt for America.

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.

And there had to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer gonna give five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for Contempt of Court, but we're gonna kill ya!

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

I have equal contempt for both left and right radicals.

Familiarity with evil breeds not contempt but acceptance.

The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy.