Ivan Denisovich Shukhov Quotes

“What kept body and soul together in these men was a mystery. Canvas belts were drawn tight around empty bellies. The frost was crackling merrily. Not a warm spot, nor a spark of fire anywhere.”

“Amazing how time flew when you were working. He’d often noticed that days in the camp rolled by before you knew it. Yet your sentence stood still, the time you had to serve never got any less.”

“You have no right to make people undress in the freezing cold! You don’t know Article 9 of the Criminal Code! . . . But they did have. They did know. It’s you, brother, who don’t know anything yet!”

“You had to be wide awake all the time. Make sure a warder never saw you on your own, only as one of a crowd. He might be looking for somebody to do a job, or he might just want to take his spite out on you.”

“His one dream now was to fall sick for two or three weeks . . . not fatally . . . just sick enough to be put in the hospital.”

“Apart from sleep an old lag can call his life his own only for ten minutes at breakfast time, five at lunchtime, and five more at suppertime.”

“There are two ends to a stick, and there’s more than one way of working. If it’s for human beings - make sure and do it properly. If it’s for the big man - just make it look good.”

“In jail and in the camps Shukhov had lost the habit of scheming how he was going to feed his family from day to day or year to year. The bosses did all his thinking for him, and that somehow made life easier. But what would it be like when he got out?”

“He immediately stopped expecting anything from the goodies on display. No good letting your belly get excited when there’s nothing to come.”