Passages and quotations collected from the various works
***
We sipped the sparkling wine slowly at the August meeting, in shared solitude.
***
What was happening in the Soviet Union was not happening in us.
***
The wine rapidly shortened the distance to her lips, and then – to the bed.
***
Mysterious, undiscovered planets affect the sea, change it, and then the sea itself immediately changes everything around – nature, weather, human mood. The words spoken in its surroundings change too, the taste of wine that lovers drink in cafes, shops, restaurants or on the beach … They drink from wine glasses, jugs, paper cups, directly from bottles, from jam cans or tins …
***
Each city has its own character, and those who do not understand its character cannot talk to the city either. Our city, in comparison with other ones, was overly curious. It did not hurt the dignity of a guest in any way, but nevertheless it definitely asked with a smile: “What city are you from, dear, what village, what story, what custom, what feast, what wine or vodka, what song, nature, cooking, dreaming, love, hate …”
***
The symbiosis of wine and the sea developed resort sclerosis among vacationers – upon arrival they forgot a lot, but at the same time, they recalled such details of their life that they would never have remembered at any other time or place.
***
During the acquaintance, a blue light illuminated me and a flying ball settled in my chest. A beautiful name – Sabina, as if it was written on her face.
***
I was at the age when you try to learn more about a female body than about a soul, and our bodies talked to each other more than we did ourselves. Each woman’s body has its own language, and I as a diligent student was learning those languages.
***
There is a time when your true homeland is only an infinite and boundless sea.
***
It was a kiss that awakens the dead and multiplies the living.
***
Each wine has its own painting, its own landscape, Rkatsitela has large vineyards, blue mountains and distant, snow-capped peaks, Khvanchkara – mountains and clouds, Isabella – an alder forest, sea and flowers, Tsolikauri has wide fields, Saperavi has starry nights, Psou – the radiance of Lake Ritsa … These landscapes beat like loving hearts.
***
No one is afraid of the angel of conscience. A man with a gun is another matter though, they kneel down before him.
***
Until constitutions and laws are ennobled and humanized, nothing will help humanity.
***
Peace first and foremost requires a conscience.
***
Our homeland is what we are today, the homeland of our children will be what our children will be.
***
The paucity of worthy people intensifies the chaos created by the unworthy one.
***
In my observation, in order to become a true patriot, you must be declared an enemy of the people, a traitor, at least twice.
***
The moral integrity of a country is more important than its territorial integrity.
***
Only those countries and those people who also care about the freedom of others and defend it as their own will be truly free.
***
She loved the bold scent of perfume. One of them was especially exposing her.
***
Claudia’s clothes were as well sexually planetary, saturated with unknown winds, winds of deserts and seas, roads of all four cardinal directions. Her blue eyes were like the spray of the ocean of an invisible and yet undiscovered galaxy.
***
And in any case, we all kill our own children in any war …
***
The sea doesn’t suit anyone more than you.
***
Secluded from everyone, we sat in the room in which an ominous, heavy gaiety reigned.
***
The past is always ahead, in the future. The past does not exist only in the past.
***
After a war, there is usually a time when people need bread more than justice.
***
We are super-powerful, super-animals.
***
And we found our America in Sukhumi’s port in the forms of, chewing gum, recordings of the ensemble “Chicago”, Elvis Presley, the star-striped flags, boxers and hunters bearded like Hemingway, whiskey, “Coca-Cola”, “Voice of America”, bought from sailors of foreign ships that had docked for just a few hours…
***
By the way, “Pepsi” had a taste of America.
***
Someone’s fat laughter rang out in the hall.
***
There are flat-bottomed boats and there are also flat-bottomed people who, like those boats, only swim in the swamp.
***
His words, like a peacock’s tail, spread along the snow-covered city streets.
***
The host and guests walked with such glowing faces, as if they had just dived out from the gentle August Sea.
***
The sea was so radiant, as if somewhere, very close, God was walking.
***
There was a sparkling scent of champagne in the room.
***
When the candle was lit, the room grew heavier.
***
The light-bearing women disappeared somewhere far away.
***
The city-theater was waiting for the hero. The city-theater was waiting for the traitor.
***
The present very rapidly became the past. The future as well.
***
Human corpses roamed the streets. The graves became homeless, lost their bottom.
***
On the street we met a soldier who looked like both the priest and the bandit.
***
Hearts were filled with piercing masts, red sails, muffled voices.
***
All wars are one war.
All lives are one life.
All deaths are one death.
***
I used to be afraid of death, Sosik, and now I’m afraid of living.
***
The City houses became like apples, oranges, sweets, pears brought to the head of a dying person … like the last gifts, thoughtful, caressing, divine, sad … for many moments of life.
***
The sea is cursed, – said Aegean Marmarilos – wars and misunderstandings are always associated with the sea. The more beautiful is the land of the sea, the more war it has. I’d rather be an eternal tourist, an eternal traveler who has neither nationality nor homeland.
***
On the seventh day of Epiphany, he clearly heard how his last bird, trembling in a cage, desperately complained to God that this planet belongs not only to human.
***
He opened his eyes and saw God. And he was wondered. He never imagined that God could be like this…
***
In your rains I grew up, while in other places I only got wet.
***
The tank is a marauder, loaded with carpets, TV, clothes, chairs. Caucasian monster.
***
The only one whom the king never punishes is a jester. And what have I lost in the land of fools?
***
You live without roots and try to fly without wings.
***
What a great feeling – to get lost in the cosmic ark of conscience, even for a few minutes.
***
Admitting your mistakes is rebirth.
***
My tragically joyful companion.
***
An excess of laws is a sign of a planetary crisis.
***
Our conflicts have aged. The Caucasus has become a deadlock for the old chronic conflicts.
***
Evil words find us faster and easier than bullets.
***
And the war came and left loneliness in memory.
***
The USSR, according to the rules of which we partially live today, does not exist, but over time, its “people from the past” and “people from the future” of the new country gather in our present, similar to each other, like twins…
***
Thanks to the war, I loved a man more… and hated.
***
You are a small country; the world’s ocean plays with you like a splinter-sized boat. You are entangled at the feet of large countries and you are sometimes so annoying that you get kicked from time to time. They say that you are like a prisoner who needs an observer after being released. By the way, they also remind that there is a small bird brushing the teeth of hippos and, if I’m not mistaken, crocodiles.
***
Conflict diagnosis and treatment depend a lot on the romance of the first meetings of the negotiators.
***
People very easily obey madmen and scoundrels.
***
In the Arctic Ocean of commercial civilization, the old world Titanic sank.
***
A society that tolerates the injustice of government for a long time becomes immoral.
***
We live in an era of conflict of post-conflict conflicts.
***
There is a crushing victory and a revitalizing defeat too.
***
A country that belittles itself glorifies other countries.
***
From time to time, in different countries, the rose becomes a political flower. There is a whole herbarium of other political flowers.
***
The uplifting of the soul requires the rising power of conscience.
***
As a rule, the shortest ways to reconciliation are scrupulously mined.
***
Sometimes it happens – the world becomes small and close, and the homeland – huge, distant and foreign.
***
A large country, which is not sparing a small one, shrinks. A small country – on the contrary.
***
Nations today are especially similar to each other – everyone, both large or small, with an uncertain future.
***
I just couldn’t finish the book of the historian, hostage of romantic illusions.
***
How this wild longing for comfort destroys us?!
***
We fell – as we were trying to overcome the distance of the stayer with the excitement and speed of a sprinter.
***
He wandered around his homeland, or more precisely his second homeland abroad.
***
Uncertainty is one type of punishment.
***
I often talk with God, but I try not to overload him with my problems.
***
When you open the front door of cynicism, you only find yourself in the hall of despair.
***
God was in a bad mood when he sculpted a man.
***
There are people who do not know how to either apologize or thank. There are countries similar to such people.
***
The high-ranking official had no hearing – neither musical nor political.
***
It seems that that part of my brain has awakened, which I inherited as an everlasting heredity from cave ancestors.
***
Stupidity is one of the most important qualities of sages.
***
There is a war in your country that does not and will not turn into your war. And there is a peace of yours that does not and will not turn into the peace of your country.
***
We will now organize a small Georgian meeting for them and set a large Georgian table.
***
Sometimes there comes a time when the future is more certain than the past.
***
We will rewrite history! – Millions have become victims of this phrase.
***
From time to time we need a madman to do something smart with him.
***
Our guilty conscience! Or rather, its guilty silence.
***
Our nationality is also a test of God.
***
The era of eco-spiritual pollution.
***
And I saw it – not a pride, but a colt of modern lions.
***
If the Earth was twice as large, there would be twice as many wars, but Christ would be still one, and Muhammad – one, and Buddha…
***
I often remind myself – not to open the door too wide for people.
***
There has never been a shortage of such people on the planet – showing fear and violating conscience.
***
Sometimes ancient scriptures contradict each other and you feel how time is scurrying among them, like a wounded wolf.
***
The door of the songbird’s cage was opened only after its death.
***
If it happens that I really die, have a conscience and don’t wake me up.
***
I am that blind man who has to rediscover the world every day.
***
Military-political hunting season has begun.
***
At the end of the performance, the curtain fell like a guillotine – and the director’s “severed” head scattered in the air.
***
The presidential energy of several persons do not fit in the country.
***
What a calm wine is in the bottle and how it agitates in my blood vessels.
***
He was right, right up to nausea.
***
The day and the sea dawned together. On such a day God is everywhere.
***
He was the man who lost the city.
***
Night. Dim light. Faces of the people in the bar are wrinkled like a paper.
***
Periods of bumpy people.
***
He was training someone else’s memories.
***
“Your watch works like a clock,” said the watchmaker about the watch he repaired.
***
Life is the least like to a play. More to the bazaar.
***
Sick wine was brought to the table – sour, with a change in color, but we did not allow ourselves to make a comment to the wine. Instead, we praised and emptied our glasses.
***
The woman prayed, but her eyes did not. they told a very different story.
***
He had anemia of the soul and often required a soul transfusion.
***
All the way I talked with my steps.
***
During the war he left a chained dog in the yard and ran away. For the rest of his life he dreamed of a dog.
***
And then we said – what the clear waters, what sweet air, what crimson twilight are there … We settled there and planted our roots deeply into the earth as light as air.
***
The largest number of lottery tickets are sold in poor countries.
***
And he wrote a book of interior lighting.