“…in the Restoration period, feeling and imagination were mistrusted: feeling implied strong convictions, and strong convictions had produced a Civil War and the harsh rule of the Commonwealth; imagination suggested the mad, the wild, the uncouth, the fanatical. It was best to live a calm civilised life governed by reason. Such a life is best lived in the town, and the town is the true centre of culture; the country estates are impoverished, and little of interest is going on there; the country itself is barbaric.”

“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it…”

“The capture of Simbirsk, my home town, is a wonderful tonic, the best treatment for my wounds. I feel a new lease of life and energy.”

“I grew up knowing I could have had a million different lives. It makes your life mysterious and your imagination go wild.”

“Walls, towns, rules, and day-to-day life doesn't make us civilized… That's organization and ritual. Civilization lives in our hearts and heads or it doesn't exist at all.”

“From earliest childhood the boy was accustomed to feel that, for him, life was double. Winter and summer, town and country, law and liberty, were hostile, and the man who pretended they were not, was in his eyes a schoolmaster — that is, a man employed to tell lies to little boys.”

“Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…”

“The new radical Islam is not simply inspired by the hatred of the West, however. Nor is it in any sense a homogeneous movement. Radical Muslims are primarily concerned to put their own house in order and to address the cultural dislocation that many have experienced in the modern period. It is really impossible to generalize about the rise of this more extreme form of the religion. It not only differs from country to country, but from town to town and from village to village. People feel cut off from their roots: Western culture has invaded the interstices of their lives.”

“it's best to accept life as it really is and not as I imagined it to be”

“These monster cities we live in today are blights of modern society. They will certainly give way to planned cities interlinked to the countryside. Everybody will live with the natural advantages of the country and the cultural associations of the town.”