I think that Russian meddling in the election is an important issue. — Masha Gessen Election Copy Share Image
“The ability to discuss things was still the most highly valued commodity in the Soviet Union.” — Masha Gessen Politics Copy Share Image
Basically, Trump's significant first moves have been twofold. To marginalize the media, and to start dismantling the federal government. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
“Science gradually yielded to propaganda, and as a result propaganda tended more and more to represent itself as science.”4” — Masha Gessen Propaganda Copy Share Image
In war you're either a collaborator or you're a resistor. I mean you don't get to be neutral. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
It is so impossible to predict how much influence what you write will have, and what sorts of anxieties and imaginaries it… — Masha Gessen Anxieties Copy Share Image
Dictators fall when they're overconfident; they stay in power when they're paranoid. — Masha Gessen Dictators Copy Share Image
A law is always that much more scary and that much more effective for a totalitarian state if it's selectively enforced. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
I do a very good impersonation of an American - I went to high school here - but I've spent most of… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
I think that Russia was like a lot of other countries, a lot of empires, in being a tyranny up until the… — Masha Gessen Country Copy Share Image
I think that Putin's strategy has been throwing a lot of money, fairly haphazardly, at a lot of projects aimed at disrupting… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Russians didn't elect Trump. Even if there was collusion, even if every hypothesis that has - that is at play in the… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the… — Masha Gessen Censorship Copy Share Image
To effectively create the image of an enemy you have to show first of all that the enemy is extremely dangerous, but… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
I really can't abide conspiracy theories, because I believe that everything in the world stems from idiocy and incompetence. That's certainly true… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
You know, I don't walk home alone at night. If I drive into our courtyard after dark, I ask my partner to… — Masha Gessen Alone Copy Share Image
Putin really assumed that once Trump - who had such clear admiration for him - was elected, it would be convenient for… — Masha Gessen Admiration Copy Share Image
You can't expect people who didn't exist as a community at all until about twenty years ago to have formed a political… — Masha Gessen Activist Copy Share Image
Every day, there'd be somebody interviewing me as a "lesbian living in Russia." It got to the point where I would joke… — Masha Gessen Children Copy Share Image
For Russians in the '90s, there was that sense of not knowing what the future held at all. And coming off a… — Masha Gessen Ability Copy Share Image
One of the most famous lines in contemporary Russian poetry is "Erica makes four copies and that's enough." That's the ethos we're… — Masha Gessen Book Copy Share Image
There's the hypothesis that things just keep happening to Russians, things that keep turning them into the same kind of subjects, as… — Masha Gessen Generation Copy Share Image
Take the people facing charges in connection with the protests that occurred on the eve of Vladimir Putin's third-term inauguration, May 6,… — Masha Gessen Activist Copy Share Image
There is no law that guarantees press access to the White House. Communication was lessening during the Obama years. There was every… — Masha Gessen Communication Copy Share Image
Donald Trump clearly doesn't have the intellectual capacity to have a concept of what he's doing. I think he has a very… — Masha Gessen Bully Copy Share Image
“In the collective prosecutorial mind our apologies are also apparently characterized as “so-called.” Though I find this insulting. It causes me suffering… — Masha Gessen Caring person Copy Share Image
Abstracted hatred is incredibly potent. There's never the risk of having it challenged by the reality of living human beings. — Masha Gessen Hatred Copy Share Image
Incomprehensible messaging is a very important part of Russian propaganda. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
If you grew up in Boston, you actually grew up thinking that Patriots' Day is a major American holiday, sort of like… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
I mean, hunger strike is almost a ritual in a Russian prison colony. It actually has been going back to Soviet times.… — Masha Gessen Hunger Copy Share Image
It's very difficult to write in Russian for someone who has never been schooled in Russian. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Fact checking Donald Trump is a really... It is kind of fun but it is ungratifying because nothing checks out. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
The most difficult and, in some ways, the most rewarding thing I've ever been through was emigrating as a teenager. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
You risk everything if you so much as join a legal protest demonstration in Russia. It raises the stakes. — Masha Gessen Protest Copy Share Image
“No one is easier to manipulate than a man who exaggerates his own influence.” — Masha Gessen Influence Copy Share Image
The American justice system administers punishment. It does not conduct inquests and it does not find facts. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
I was a political journalist for a long time. I wrote a book about Putin. I made all kinds of trouble. — Masha Gessen Book Copy Share Image
When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep. — Masha Gessen Business Copy Share Image
