For most of my life there was a city called Leningrad; now it’s called St Petersburg. Leningrad, it turned out, was just a blip, but we all thought it was here to stay. That’s why I was always against communism: people telling you that you should sacrifice the present for the future because it’s going to be terrific. But how do they know it’s going to be terrific? Nobody knows. You have to live in the here and now. It’s the now that’s eternal.
