One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Amazing how time flew when you were working. He’d often noticed that days in the camp rolled by before you knew it. Yet your sentence stood still, the time you had to serve never got any less.

A genius doesn’t adjust his treatment of a theme to a tyrant’s taste.”

For a little while Shukhov forgot all his grievances, forgot that his sentence was long, that the day was long, that once again there would be no Sunday. For the moment he had only one thought: We shall survive. We shall survive it all. God willing, we’ll see the end of it!

No zek ever lays eyes on a clock or watch. What good would it do him, anyway? All a zek needs to know is—how soon is reveille? How long till work parade? Till dinnertime? Till lights-out?