Sergei Lukyanenko > Quotes

“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.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for and would surely find her.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“The common good and the individual good rarely coincide.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept. And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right.
"The common good and the individual good rarely coincide..."
Sure, I know, it's true.
But some truths are probably worse than lies.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“One day you will hear the sound of time rustling as it slips through your fingers like sand. Remember me then. I wish you luck.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“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?”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“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.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart."

"So what's vodka for?"

"For the soul. If it's hurting real bad”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“A car's not the right place for showing off to a girl—the bed's the place for that. The consequences of a mistake there are more upsetting, but less tragic.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“That's the way it goes sometimes: in order to help your friends, first you have to help your enemy. Better get used to it.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“What kind of monster are you anyway? You should be more humane, Gennady!"
"I was humane when I was alive," said the vampire.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“And the simple people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“Потому что любовь - она над Тьмой и Светом.
Потому что любовь - это ни секс, ни одинаковая вера, ни "совместное ведение хозяйства и воспитание детей".
Потому что любовь - это тоже Сила.
И черта с два к ней имеют отношение Свет и Тьма, люди и Иные, мораль и закон, десять заповедей и Великий Договор.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“Because love stands above Darkness and Light.
Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or "the joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children."
Because love is also Power.
And Light and Darkness, people and Others, morality and law, the Ten Commandments and the Great Treaty have damn all to do with it.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“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.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“The only thing that restrains you is fear, Anton Gorodetsky. For yourself, or for people—that's not important. But we are restrained by horror. And that is why we observe the Treaty.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“Наша работа во тьме -
Мы делаем, что умеем,
Мы отдаем, что имеем,
Наша работа - во тьме.
Сомнения стали страстью,
А страсть стала судьбой.
Все остальное - искусство
В безумии быть собой.
- Гимн хакеров, русский вариант.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Лабиринт отражений

“This one swears like a trooper-- he's a bad boy.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Twilight Watch

“В России так заведено — в Сибирь али ссылают, али сами бегут.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Twilight Watch

“Пророк вещает истину. То, что неизбежно. Зачем знать неизбежное, Антон? Если неизбежное плохо, то не стоит расстраиваться раньше времени. А если хорошо — пусть лучше будет приятная неожиданность. Многие знания — многие печали.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Новый Дозор

“Анна Тихоновна была женщиной старой закваски. Поговаривали, что если не при свидетелях, то наша единственная учительница пьёт чай из блюдца. Зелёных чаёв она не признавала, ещё более презирала травяные настои, по недоразумению называемые чаями. Чай в её представлении должен был быть чёрным, как дёготь, и крепким, как совесть грешника. Ну или наоборот. Чёрным, как совесть, и крепким, как дёготь.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Новый Дозор

“Я думаю, что существо, у которого есть чувство юмора, не может быть совсем уж плохим.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Новый Дозор

“Это очень правильно — приезжать в чужой город под утро. На поезде, на самолёте — всё равно. День начинается будто с чистого листа.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“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”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“Would any grown girl in Russia be frightened by a "room of horror"? Westerner's lives are too calm and peaceful, is makes them afraid of all sorts of nonsense...”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“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?”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“There are far more reasons for death than there are for life.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“An assassin can be found for every president. And for every prophet there are a thousand interpreters to distort the essence of the religion, to replace the bright flame with the heat of the inquisitors' pyres. The time came when every book was cast into the fire, when every symphony was reduced to a popular tune and played in all the drinking dens. A sound philosophical basis could be set in place under any vile nonsense.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“If you have love in you, it's a strength. But if you are in love, it's a weakness.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you're already late....”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“Czech beer in bottles is the corpse of real beer in a glass coffin.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“But even if we were to disappear, people would still be divided into people and Others. No matter how those Others were different.
People can't get by without Others. Put two people on an uninhabited island, and you'll have a human being and an Other. And the difference is that an Other is always tormented by his differentness. It's easier for people. They know they're people, and that's what they ought to be. And they all have no choice but to be that way. All of them, forever.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Twilight Watch

“Ileż to już razy widziałem, co robi z ludźmi pragnienie życia, a ciągle nie mogę przestać się dziwić. Zrezygnowanie z siebie, złożenie siebie w ofierze, męczeństwo - to się zdarza w żywotach świętych i bajkach dla dzieci. A w życiu bardzo rzadko, zazwyczaj w szale walki, w ataku wściekłości. Wtedy prosty żołnierz, który nie ma za sobą ani starożytnego rodu, ani szlachectwa, kładzie się piersią na kulomiot, torując drogę towarzyszom. Wtedy ludzie wbiegają do płonących budynków, skaczą w odmęty, z uśmiechem idą na szafot. Wsciekłość! Wsciekłość i nienawiść - tylko one tworzą prawdziwe męczeństwo.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Холодные берега. Близится утро

“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.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“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.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, The Last Watch

“There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That's what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“Who's James Bond?" Zabulon inquired.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Twilight Watch

“If they do anything to me, just skin them alive, sweetheart," I said.
"I'll do more than that-- I'll make them eat their own skins.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Day Watch

“—Numer jeden — rzekł Siemion, wyciągając z plastykowej siatki z reklamą jogurtu „Danone-Kids" butelkę wódki.
— Smirnowka.
—Rekomendujesz? — spytałem ze zwątpieniem. Nie uważam się za specjalistę od wódek.
—Już ją dwieście lat piję. A przedtem była znacznie gorsza, możesz mi wierzyć.
Zaraz pojawiły się dwie szklanki z rżniętego szkła, dwulitrowy słoik, gdzie pod zaklepaną metalową pokrywką znajdowały się ściśnięte maleńkie ogóreczki, duża torba z kiszoną kapustą.
—A popitka? — spytałem.
—Wódki się nie popija, chłopcze — pokiwał głową Siemion. — Popija się podróbki.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch