#yerofeyev

“My delicate nature is indeed detrimental to me. It corrupted my childhood and adolescence. More precisely, it was not delicacy but simply that I had infinitely expanded the sphere of intimacy - how many times has this destroyed me.” (page 30)

“"So get up and go. So we can all see you leave. Don't humiliate us and don't torture us. Get up and go."

So I got up and went. Not to relieve myself but to make things easier for them. And when I returned, one of them said to me, "With such feelings of shame you'll always be alone and unhappy."

Yes. He was absolutely right. I know many of God's intentions, but why he invested me with such chaste feelings I've never been able to figure out. And this chastity of mine - this is the funniest thing about it - this chastity of mine has been interpreted so inside out that I have been refused even the most elementary courtesies.” (page 33)

“So, you see. And so it has been all my life. All my life this nightmare has haunted me, this nightmare of being understood not just wrongly, but in exactly the opposite way to what I intend.” (page 34)

“Oh, freedom and equality! Oh, brotherhood, oh, life on the dole! Oh, the sweetness of unaccountability, Oh, that most blessed of times in the life of my people, the time from the opening until the closing of the liquor stores.” (page 36)

“And so I solemnly announce that, till the end of my days, I shall not undertake anything the like of my sad brush with eminence. I'll remain below and from below I'll spit on their social ladder. Right, spit on every rung of it. In order to climb it, it's necessary to be forged steel-assed from head to toe. And this I'm not.

Anyway, they fired me. Me, the thoughtful prince, the analyst lovingly inspecting the souls of his people - me, who was considered, at the bottom, a fink and a collaborator and, at the top, a good-for-nothing with an unstable mind.