Best 80 quotes of Sergei Lukyanenko on MyQuotes

What an unfortunate instrument the guitar is! An instrument of such great nobility, a genuine monarch of music-- reduced to a pitiful lump of wood with six strings, constantly abused by people with no ear and no voice.

What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening.

What was my truth worth, if I was prepared to defend the entire world, but not those who were close to me? If I subdued hate, but wouldn't give love a chance?

When leaders betray their people and the people don't overthrow them, it's not just the leaders who should be blamed.

When people got old, why did they always develop a passion for scrabbling in the earth? Were they trying to get used to it?

When people love each other, when they find each other out of thousands and millions of people. It's always destiny.

When there are strange things going on all around, every coincidence should be considered very carefully.

Why was is that the Light acted through lies, and the Darkness acted though the truth? Why was is that our truth proved powerless, but lies were effective? And why was the Darkness able to manage perfectly well with truth in order to do Evil?

You're a big boy, you ought to understand that punctual transport, public order and safe streets, polite people and good medical services are all the achievements of dictatorship.

After all, inside every woman, no matter how grown up she is, there is still a frightened little girl.

[after guard dogs frozen mid-attack] 'How long are the dogs going to stay hanging there like that?' ask Yulia. 'I want to make friends with them. Otherwise, i'll be left with a latent psychological complex that's bound to affect my personality and sexual preferences.

And that, Pavel, is why you shouldn't use magic for every tiny little thing. Where you can put your trust in science, that's what you should do.

As she conceived it, tea had to be as black as tar and as strong as a sinner's conscience. Or the other way around. As black as that conscience and as strong as tar. And sweet.

Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe it, not in my truth, not in Geser's. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn't make you shudder. What's bad about Dark freedom is not just that it's freedom from others. That's another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can't feel any pain in your chest—call for help. Only by then it'll be too late

Do you know what it's like to be condemned to love?

Haggis" is a brand of nappies.' I said. 'They're good, we used them for our daughter.' 'Haggis is a kind of food too,' said Semyon, shaking his head. 'Although as far as taste goes, there's probably not much difference.

He looked just perfect to play Dorian Gray in a film version of Oscar Wilde's novel. Young, graceful, and indecently fresh and handsome, he could easily have worn a badge that said READY FOR DEBAUCHERY!

How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideal of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys—carefully, so there are no marks.

I can't see the line between deliberate intention and coincidence.

In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive. And we have no right to do that—we never have had, not since the creation of the world.

In a war the most dangerous thing is to understand the enemy. To understand is to forgive.

Love is happiness, but only when you believe it will last forever. Even though every time it turns out to be a lie, it’s only faith that gives love its strength and its joy.

Nėra ir niekada nebus Rojaus, o tik ledinės pragaro lygumos, kuriose kiekvieną valandą kaupiasi žemiškojo pasaulio turtai. Šalti ir bežadžiai žmogiškojo gyvenimo krantai, kuriuose viešpatauja ne dvasia, o materija.

Niekas negali pasikartoti. Niekas. Vėjas neša smėlį ir supusto barchanus. Jie visi panašūs vienas į kitą, bet vos tik įsižiūri – ir pamatai, kad skirtumų daugiau nei panašumų. Net smiltys nevienodos ir slenka kiekviena savaip. O ką jau kalbėti apie žmones. Kiekviename žmoguje palaidoti tūkstančiai kitų žmonių. Dešimtys tūkstančių. Visi tie, kuriais jis galėjo tapti. Kiekviename iš mūsų palaidotas vagis ir poetas, žmogžudys ir šventasis, jūreivis ir sklandytojas. Mums neskirta nugyventi tūkstančius gyvenimų, mes iš jų visų pasirenkame vieną vienintelį, ir kartais netgi klaidingą. Bet jeigu jau pasirinkom kadaise...negalim užmiršti, kuo tu būtum galėjęs tapti. Reikia nešioti savyje visus savo nenugyventus gyvenimus. Ir staiga pagalvojau, kad mirtis - visai ne tokia baisi, kad kiekvienas iš mūsų jau tūkstančius kartų yra miręs.

Others are not born bad or good... and neither are people, by the way.

People don't usually think about the meaning of the words they say. It seems to them that words convey truth. That when someone hears the word "red" he will think of a ripe raspberry and not a pool of blood. That the word "love" will evoke Shakespeare's sonnets and not the erotic films of Playboy. And they find themselves baffled when the word they've spoken doesn't evoke the right response.

The way people behave depends on the basic moral tests and norms in a society. Naturally, the Khmer Rouge, Al-Qaeda terrorists, respectable middle-class Europeans, and, say, members of the Komosol in the 1930's, would behave quite differently in identical situations. But that wouldn't change the essential point. The ration of altruists and egoists, even among Benedictine monks and members of the Gestapo, is the same. It's just that their altruism and egotism are expressed differently.

To kill the enemy is valorous. To condemn him to torment is infamous. To condemn him to eternal torment is eternal infamy.

What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening: 'And then the Master of the house came to him and said: "I won't let you go, I'll tie you up and bind you tight and you'll rot under the fallen branches!"' That's the way to make people wary of anomalous phenomena! Kids sense that, you know–it's no wonder they love telling stories about the Black Han and the Coffin on Wheels. But modern literature, and especially the movies, it all just dilutes that instinctive horror. How can you feel afraid of Dracula, if he's been killed a hundred times? How can you be afraid of aliens, if our guys always squelch them? Yes, Hollywood is the great luller of human vigilance. A toast–to the death of Hollywood, for depriving us of a healthy fear of the unknown!

You're a Dark One," said Anton. "All you see in everything is evil, treachery, trickery." "All I do is not close my eyes to them," Edgar retorted. "And that's why I don't trust Zabulon. I distrust him almost as much as I do Gesar. I can even trust you more—you're just another unfortunate chess piece who happens by chance to be painted a different color from me. Does a white pawn hate a black one? No. Especially if the two pawns have their heads down together over a quiet beer or two." "You know," Anton said in a slightly surprised voice, "I just don't understand how you can carry on living if you see the world like that. I'd just go and hang myself." "So you don't have any counterarguments to offer?" Anton took a gulp of beer too. The wonderful thing about this natural Czech beer was that even if you drank lots of it, it still didn't make your head or your body feel heavy... Or was that an illusion? "Not a single one," Anton admitted. "Right now, this very moment, not a single one. But I'm sure you're wrong. It's just difficult to argue about the colors of the rainbow with a blind man. There's something missing in you... I don't know what exactly. But it's something very important, and without it you're more helpless than a blind man.