“One time, Alexander Nikolaevich discovered, Stalin invited an old friend back in Georgia to Moscow for a reunion. They dined and drank—Stalin… — Masha Gessen Friendship Copy Share Image
I don't have a lot of hope for Russia when Putin goes, because I think that the kind of damage that has… — Masha Gessen Country 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
What's going on in Russia is not that the public is homophobic, but that the Kremlin has unleashed a war. You don't… — Masha Gessen Book Copy Share Image
There's something structurally integrated with foreign coverage. Reporters often default to thinking of their government as the sort of ultimate authority. — Masha Gessen Authority Copy Share Image
There are a couple of ways to use the word democracy, and the way that I think is productive is to think… — Masha Gessen Democracy Copy Share Image
“Like Solzhenitsyn, I believe that in the end, words will break cement. Solzhenitsyn wrote, "So the word is more sincere than concrete?… — Masha Gessen Language Copy Share Image
“Here is what I was trying to figure out: how a miracle happens. A great work of art -- something that makes… — Masha Gessen Art Copy Share Image
When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel… — Masha Gessen Feels Copy Share Image
By the mid-noughties, I found that I was no longer the only openly gay person in every setting. At one point, a… — Masha Gessen Found Copy Share Image
Now, academics are not always the easiest people to talk to, and the scholarly papers aren't always the easiest papers to read,… — Masha Gessen Always Copy Share Image
My hypothesis is that for people who are both trained and inclined to think in rigorously logical ways, it is particularly difficult… — Masha Gessen Adapt Copy Share Image
I looked at Putin and was terrified from the very beginning. That makes me look very prescient because he actually turned out… — Masha Gessen Actually Copy Share Image
What has happened to protesters in the past was that, basically, the government in 2012 put an end to a series of… — Masha Gessen Activist Copy Share Image
Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy… — Masha Gessen Country 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 Impossible Copy Share Image
“Perestroika was an impossible idea on the face of it. The Party was setting out to employ its structures of command to… — Masha Gessen Change Copy Share Image
I think that when you emigrate, when everything you took for granted disappears, it's a kind of loss of innocence. When you're… — Masha Gessen I think 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 Science Copy Share Image
