Mikhail Sholokhov quotes

Mikhail Sholokhov was a Russian novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His epic works, most notably "And Quiet Flows the Don," depict the lives of Cossacks during times of war and revolution. He is celebrated for his realistic portrayal of Russian history and his mastery of narrative. Here are 10 of his quotes:

Sometimes life played with him, sometimes it hung on him like a stone round the neck of a drowned man.

Mikhail Sholokhov

When swept out of its normal channel, life scatters into innumerable streams. It is difficult to foresee which it will take in its treacherous and winding course. Where to-day it flows in shallows, like a rivulet over sandbanks, so shallow that the shoals are visible, to-morrow it will flow richly and fully.

Mikhail Sholokhov

The grass grows over the graves, time overgrows the pain. The wind blew away the traces of those who had departed; time blows away the bloody pain and the memory of those who did not live to see their dear ones again-and will not live, for brief is human life, and not for long is any of us granted to tread the grass.

Mikhail Sholokhov

And over the village slipped the days, passing into the nights; the weeks flowed by, the months crept on, the wind howled, and, glassified with an autumnal, translucent, greenish-azure, the Don flowed tranquilly down to the sea.

Mikhail Sholokhov

In this winter night, long and ample for bitter memories, many a widow who lost her husband in the war and is now left alone will press her palms to her ageing face; and in the nocturnal darkness the burning tears, as bitter as wormwood, will scorch her fingers.

Mikhail Sholokhov

One might say that the novel is the genre that most predisposes one to a profound insight into the tremendous life around us, instead of putting forward one's own tiny ego as the centre of the universe.

Mikhail Sholokhov

In my opinion, the true pioneers are those artists who make manifest in their works the new content, the determining characteristics of life in our time.

Mikhail Sholokhov

I am one of those authors who consider it their highest honour and their highest liberty to have a completely untrammelled chance of using their pens to serve the working people.

Mikhail Sholokhov

Vast sections of the world's population are inspired by the same desires and live for common interests that bind them together far more than they separate them.

Mikhail Sholokhov