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“If you're being swept away, off somewhere, then why count the pebbles on the shore; they're on the shore, after all.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“She had to live a long and wretched life to admit to herself at its end that she hadn't understood anything about it.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“It's still not tea without a samovar. Just water, that's all.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“The new settlement was no nearer or dearer to her than, say, America, where they said people, in order to not wear out their feet, walked on their heads.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Slowly but surely life becomes normal, and a man gets used to it, it doesn't happen any other way.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Of course, you could live without asking questions, just live the way life comes, float with the current, but, I'm crazy that way: I must know why and wherefore, dig down to the truth myself. That's why I'm a man.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“And if you don't like it here, you can go somewhere else, where it's better, no road is closed to you.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Everything that happens is for the best, so that life is happier and more interesting. Just live without looking around or thinking.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Life was life so that it could go on, it could take everything and survive anywhere, even on bare rock or shifting sands, and if necessary, even under water, but why torture it this way for no good reason, creating totally unnecessary difficulties for people, why worry about small conveniences and create major inconveniences?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“It's a fact that even death looks good in company.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“...an unknown sin needs all the more expiation.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Who could say why worthwhile people have worthless children?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Everything that lived on earth had one meaning only: to serve.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Why seek some higher truth and service, when all the truth is in the fact that you're worth nothing and won't be worth anything anymore, that everything that you came into the world to do, you've done long ago, and that your only work now is to be a burden to others. Is that so? Is it?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“There was nothing more unfair in the world than when something, be it tree or man, lived on to uselessness, to the point when it became a burden; that of the multitude of sins let loose upon the world to be prayed away and redeemed, this was the only one that was unbearable. The tree at least would fall, rot, and fertilize the earth. But man? Is he at least good for that? Then why bear old age if it brings nothing but discomfort and suffering?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“And our conscience is getting old, its an old woman, and no one looks at it anymore.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“In the old days, you could see it: whether a person had it or not. Those who had it were conscientious, those without it were conscienceless. And now only the devil can tell, everything is mixed up in one pile. They bring it up needlessly with every word, mauling the poor thing so much it's barely alive.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“In the old days conscience was very important. If someone tried living without one, it was obvious right away, everyone lived an open life then. There were all kinds of people then, too. Some would have been happy to follow their conscience, but what do you do if you're born without one? You can't buy it with money.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“When Father was dying, he said: 'Darya don't take on too much --you'll wear yourself out, you take on only the most important thing: to have a conscience and not to be bothered by it.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“May be it's hard to tell from us what people were like in the old days, but no one looks behind himself anymore. Everyone's rushing headlong. They're out of breath, stumbling on every step, but they keep on running...No time to look back, there's no time to look underfoot...as though someone's chasing them.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“The world is going to crack in half: that's what is happening! And it will break across us, the old people...we don't belong here or there. Lord have mercy!”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Live, Darya, as long as you're alive, Good or bad, you live, that's what your life has to be. If you swim in sorrow and anger and you get exhausted and wanted to join us-- don't; you live, move, make the world remember that we once lived there. No one's ever been afraid to come join us, there's never been and never will be such a person in our family.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“There's nothing left holy in the world for you. Herods!”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Come on, girls. Either he's crazy, or he's telling the truth.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Everything that just recently had seemed eternal and solid as rock was so quickly turned into rack and ruin you just wanted to shut your eyes and forget.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“It's sinful with him and lonely without him.”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Let them drown me, if that's what they want. Let them. You die once. What's there to be afraid of?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora

“Oh don't torture my heart! I'll die of sadness in one week there. Living among strangers! How can you transplant an old tree?”
― Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora