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“Трудно отказаться от мечты. Легче усложнить путь к ней, чем поверить, что задуманному не осуществиться.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Самая неприятная тишина там, где много людей молчат.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Никогда �� это слишком долгое слово.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Но еще Седой говорил: слова, которые сказаны, что-то означают, даже если ты ничего не имел в виду.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Музыка �� прекрасный способ стирания мыслей, плохих и не очень, самый лучший и самый давний.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Свобода в тебе самом.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Они как содержимое этой урны. Тебе не нравится ее запах, а мне не нравится запах мертвых слов. Ты ведь не стал бы вытряхивать на меня все эти вонючие окурки и плевки? Но ты засыпаешь меня гнилыми словами-пустышками, ни на секунду не задумываясь, приятно мне это или нет. Ты вообще об этом не думаешь.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones
as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“All right,�� he said. “Let’s forget about that you, the one living in the mirror.�� “Are you saying he is not me?�� “He is. But not quite. He is you seen through the lens of your image of yourself. We all look worse in the mirror than we actually are, didn’t you know that?”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“Я дерево. Когда меня срубят, разведите костер из моих ветвей.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“There is nothing more horrible than knowing what awaits us tomorrow,”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“Varbūt kafija ir pieaugušo dzēriens? Kas to dzer, kļūst pieaudzis? Pēc Sienāža domām, tā arī bija. Dzīve pakļāvās saviem, neviena neizdomātiem likumiem, un viens no šādiem likumiem bija kafija un tie, kas kafiju dzer. Sākumā tev ļauj dzert kafiju. Pēc tam vairs nepieskata, cikos tu aizej gulēt. Smēķēt neviens neļauj, bet neatļaut var dažādi. [..] Viss sākas ar kafiju.”
― Mariama Petrosjana, Дом, в котором...

“I am drinking the clouds and the frozen rain. The soot of the streets and the sparrow's footsteps.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“And then it turned out that the House was alive, that it too could love.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“Much easier to complicate the road to it than to accept that it could never be achieved.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“С тех пор прошло много времени, и Слепой научился улыбаться, но знал, что улыбка не украшает его, как других. Он натыкался на растянутые рты в выпуклых картинках своих детских книг, находил их на лицах игрушек, но все это не было тем, что можно поймать в голосе. Слушая улыбающиеся голоса, он наконец понял. "Улыбка - это свет.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“- В этом вся разница между мной и тобой: в том, что во мне чуть больше собаки.
- В тебе до хрена чуть больше всего, - бормочет Горбач. - И чуть меньше человека, который уже не умещается там, где столько всего понапихано.”
― Мариам Петросян, Дом, в котором...

“В роднике твоих глаз и виселица, и висельник, и веревка. (Пауль Целан. "Хвала твоим далям")”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Только редко высказывающиеся люди умеют произносить такие убийственные в своей простоте фразы.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Больше всего мне в них импонируют законы Кармы. «Тот, кто в этой жизни обидел осла, в следующей сам станет ослом». Не говоря уже о коровах. Очень справедливая система. Вот только чем глубже вникаешь, тем интереснее: кого же в прошлой жизни обидел ты?”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“When a person turns into a patient he relinquishes his identity. The individuality sloughs off, and the only thing that’s left is an animal shell over a compound of fear, hope, pain and sleep. There is no trace of humanity in there. The human floats somewhere outside of the boundaries of the patient, waiting patiently for the possibility of a resurrection. And there is nothing worse for a spirit than to be reduced to a mere body.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“I lay there wrapped up in my corner of the blanket. I was content. I became a part of something big, something of many arms and legs, something warm and chatty. I was probably its tail or paw, or maybe even a bone. Any movement made my head spin, but still I couldn’t remember the last time when I’d felt so comfortable. If, that morning, someone had told me that I was going to be spending the night like this, mellow and happy, drinking and listening to stories, would I have believed it? Probably not. Stories. Fairy tales. In the dark, complete with harmless dragons, basilisks, and stupid, stupid snowmen...
I almost cried from all the empathy for my packmates that was now flooding me, but managed to stop myself. Those would have been the wrong tears, drunken and maudlin.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Do you really believe what you just said? Or are you trying to make me feel better?��
“I’m trying to make myself feel better, why? But as Ancient used to say, when words have been spoken they always have a meaning, even if you didn’t mean it when you spoke them.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Do you sometimes experience an irrational fear of the future?�� This is question number sixty-one. They told us that all questions on the test were significant. That each added important detail to the psychological profile. In our case they could’ve very well started and ended the test with this one.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“I am a tree. When I am cut down, make a fire with my branches.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“There are people who live their lives as if running some kind of experiment,”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“My own uselessness is devouring me. Soon there will be only bones left. A familiar feeling, one I’ve had too often ever since Wolf died. Then it turned out that I could get used to living with it. Now I’ll have to drag myself through all of that again. Endlessly repeating to myself that it could have been worse.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, The Gray House

“Всякий раз, потакая своим желаниям, теряешь волю и становишься их рабом.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“�� Это вопрос свободы, �� говорит он. �� О которой можно спорить бесконечно с перерывами на чай, сон и празднование юбилеев.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“Когда-то давно в статье о Могильнике я расковырял слово «пациент». Препарировал его, разложил на микрочастицы. И пришел к выводу, что пациент не может быть человеком. Что это два совершенно разных понятия. Делаясь пациентом, человек утрачивает свое «я». Стирается личность, остается животная оболочка, смесь страха и надежды, боли и сна. Человеком там и не пахнет. Человек где-то за пределами пациента дожидается возможного воскрешения. А для духа нет страшнее, чем стать просто телом. Поэтому Могильник. Место, где отмирает дух.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...