A biography for Svetlana Alexievichhasn’t been written yet.
“All our lives, we fight for certain ideals, and they get diluted, and then we have to fight for them again.”
“I'm not a public person.”
“I have collected the history of 'domestic,' 'indoor' socialism, bit by bit. The history of how it played out in the human soul. I am drawn to that small space called a human being... a single individual. In reality, that is where everything happens.”
“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.”
“Why do I write? I have been called a writer of catastrophes, but that isn't true. I am always looking for words of love. Hate will not save us. Only love.”
“I don't hate. I love the Russian people. I love the Belarusan people... I love Ukraine very much.”
“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.”
“I love the good Russian world, the humanitarian Russian world, but I do not love the Russian world of Beria, Stalin, and Shoigu.”
“I do not remember any questions in my childhood other than questions about death and about loss, and it was clear that the books that filled the house were not as interesting as the conversations outside.”