Hugh Grant Quotes

I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.

I have this recurring nightmare where I'm giving a speech in front of my old high school classmates, and they start laughing at me, and I look down and realize I'm naked. And a shark.

I started like many young Russian people in the beginning of perestroika when it seemed that everything was possible.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold.

The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad.

Writers seem mesmerized by the state - the temporal entity. The word 'perestroika' is impressed somehow on our minds. But that is not the duty of a writer.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.

Reagan's defense buildup and SDI, so ridiculed at the time, pressed Gorbachev, while his economy was collapsing, to make arms deals and improve relations with the West, which contributed to the unraveling of his empire.

Gorbachev's legacy is that he called time on communism, partially against his will, but in fact, he finished it off. Without violence. Without bloodshed. Beyond that, I am struggling to think of much else in terms of real legacy.

Donald Trump's interest in Russia dates back to Soviet times. In fact, there's extraordinary footage of him shaking hands with Mikhail Gorbachev. It comes from 1988, the peak of perestroika and Gorbachev's efforts to charm the American public.

The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course.

I didn't believe that the Soviet Union would ever break down.

Nobody thought the Soviet Union would collapse; it was a shock for everyone.

He [Mikhail Gorbachev] has, as many great leaders have, impressive eyes....There's a kind of laser-beam stare, a forced quality, you get from Gorbachev that does not come across as something peaceful within himself. It's the look of a kind of human volcano, or he'd probably like to describe it as a human nuclear energy plant.

Perestroika is nothing more than refined Stalinism.

Today's Russia is not to be compared with the Soviet Union of back then.

Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, people thought I wasn't funny anymore.

What did in the Soviet Union was the Soviet Union.

Adults under threat feel like children.

I left Russia in 1993 optimistic that democracy had taken hold despite the obstacles.

The crowd intimidates me, its breath suffocates me. I feel paralyzed by its curious look, and the unknown faces make me dumb.