Ukraine Love Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Ukraine Love. Here they are! All 51 of them:

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
But I'm here. I will love him. I will be his mother.
Kim De Blecourt (Until We All Come Home: A Harrowing Journey, a Mother's Courage, a Race to Freedom)
You cannot fell a hill From force of will Only time. You cannot dissipate Hate with righteous hate Only love. Only time, only love, Only time and love.
Shellen Lubin
We, who have so much, need to reach out to the orphans of this world and show them the care, hope, and love they deserve.
Kim De Blecourt (Until We All Come Home: A Harrowing Journey, a Mother's Courage, a Race to Freedom)
Live your dreams, not your fears! A.Hume
Albina Hume
If with all your power you kissed the angel of love, what then might happen?
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
And now the fight continues for all orphans and children who need families who will love and care for them—until they too can all go home.
Kim De Blecourt (Until We All Come Home: A Harrowing Journey, a Mother's Courage, a Race to Freedom)
His accidental fortune was beyond calculation, to have been born in 1948 in placid Hampshire, not Ukraine or Poland in 1928, not to have been dragged from the synagogue steps in 1941 and brought here. His white-tiled cell – a piano lesson, a premature love affair, a missed education, a missing wife – was by comparison a luxury suite. If his life so far was a failure, as he often thought, it was in the face of history’s largesse.
Ian McEwan (Lessons)
Defeat war with the language of love.
Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann (World Moving Love Quotations: 121 World Moving Love Quotations)
Yes indeed, both Muslim and Jewish!I, her father, am Muslim, at least on paper; her mother is Jewish, at least in theory. With us, religion is transmitted through the father; among Jews, through the mother. Therefore, according to the Muslims, Nadia was Muslim; according to the Jews, she was Jewish. She herself might have chosen one or the other, or neither, she chose to be both at once...Yes, both at once and more. She was proud of all the bloodlines that had converged in her, roads of conquest or exile from central Asia, Anatolia, the Ukraine, Arab, Bessarabia, Armenia, Bavaria...She refused to divide out her blood, her soul.
Amin Maalouf (Ports of Call)
...the wind in Ukraina blows very hard and cold at this moment. But it will not always be so. And where there is love, there is always enough warmth for the human soul to thrive.
Marina Lewycka (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian)
The cold, cruel war is raging wildly but I will sow seeds of peace again and again. Garden of hope I foresee and spring is always lovely.
Bhuwan Thapaliya
He who has the heart for war, has no heart left for love.
Anthony T. Hincks
No matter how you may try to justify it. You can never justify war. On the other hand, you don’t need to justify peace – it is always beautiful.
Bhuwan Thapaliya
Born in Ontario he was, 10 years later, her mom delivered a baby girl in ‘picturesque Ukraine.
Lana M. Rochel (A Catch-22: True Story (Poetry by Lana M. Rochel))
The Empire would love to rip Ukraine from Moscow’s bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. Kiev’s membership of the European Union would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neoconservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but perhaps no price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!
William Blum (America's Deadliest Export: Democracy The Truth about US Foreign Policy and Everything Else)
The National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states not in love with US foreign policy, is Washington’s foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change. The NED website listed sixty-five projects that it had supported financially in recent years in Ukraine.
William Blum (America's Deadliest Export: Democracy The Truth about US Foreign Policy and Everything Else)
It is best if the guard is in love with America and wants to overawe the American by being a premium guard. This kind of guard thinks that he will encounter the American again one day in America, and that the American will offer to take him to a Chicago Bulls game, and buy him blue jeans and white bread and delicate toilet paper. This guard dreams of speaking English without an accent and obtaining a wife with an unmalleable bosom. This guard will confess that he does not love where he lives. The other kind of guard is also in love with America, but he will hate the American for being an American. This is worst. This guard knows he will never go to America, and knows that he will never meet the American again. He will steal from the American, and terror the American, only to teach that he can.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
The Empire would love to rip Ukraine from Moscow’s bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. Kiev’s membership of the European Union would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neoconservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family;
William Blum (America's Deadliest Export: Democracy The Truth about US Foreign Policy and Everything Else)
She always felt that she knew everything about him that could be known - not that he was simple, but that he was knowable, like a list of errands, like an encyclopedia. He had a birthmark on the third toe of his left foot. He wasn't able to urinate if someone could hear him. He thought cucumbers were good enough, but pickles were delicious - so absolutely delicious, in fact, that he questioned whether they were, indeed, made from cucumbers, which were only good enough. He hadn't heard of Shakespeare, but Hamlet sounded familiar. He liked making love from behind. That, he thought, was about as nice as it gets. He had never kissed anyone besides his mother and her. He had dived for the golden sack only because he wanted to impress her. He sometimes looked in the mirror for hours at a time, making faces, tensing muscles, winking, smiling, puckering. He had never seen another man naked, and so had no idea if his body was normal. The word "butterfly" made him blush, although he didn't know why. He had never been out of the Ukraine. He once thought that the earth was the centre of the universe, but learned better. He admired magicians more after learning the secrets of their tricks.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
Happiness is relative. Moments aren't bought, they're earned. They're felt in the present but are created by the past. Ultimately, at the heart of every moment is the effort you've put in to make it real. Your effort determines how much the moment matters to you and to the people around you, the ones you love who share the experience with you.
Valentin Chmerkovskiy (I'll Never Change My Name: An Immigrant's American Dream from Ukraine to the USA to Dancing with the Stars)
I remember the teacher telling us that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, alongside Russia. “The Soviet Union is the largest and most glorious empire that the world has ever seen,” the teacher lectured. “We’re all proud comrades. We’re all like brothers. We’re so lucky to be part of the greatest nation that has ever existed. We love our country and our country loves us like a mother loves her children.
Carlito Sofer, Nik Krasno
Get Together" (originally by The Kingston Trio) Love is but a song we sing Fear's the way we die You can make the mountains ring Or make the angels cry Though the bird is on the wing And you may not know why Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now Some may come and some may go He will surely pass When the one that left us here Returns for us at last We are but a moment's sunlight Fading in the grass Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now If you hear the song I sing You will understand, listen You hold the key to love and fear All in your trembling hand Just one key unlocks them both It's there at your command Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now Come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now I said come on, people now Smile on your brother Everybody get together Try to love one another right now Right now Right now The Youngbloods, The Youngbloods (1967)
The Youngbloods
I Am Ukraine (The Sonnet) Peace doesn't come through prayers, Peace comes through responsible action. When the invader stomps on innocent lives, Not choosing a side is a consent to oppression. Ask us for water, we won't let you go unfed, But do not mistake our gentleness as fear. If you so much as lay a finger on our home, We'll defend it with our blood, sweat 'n tears. We ain't no coward to selfishly seek security, When our land is being ransacked by raccoons. When the lives of our loved ones are at stake, We'll break but never bend to oligarchical buffoons. The love of our families is what keeps us breathing. To preserve their smiles, we shall happily die fighting.
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
The Ten Humanitarian Commandments 1. First you are human, then everything else. 2. No one is the authority of your life, but you. 3. Impose nobody on nobody. 4. Don't be rigid about anybody's ideas - expand on them. 5. Take a thinker as a mental companion if you need, but not the only companion. 6. Always have some healthy respect for fiction, and never glorify facts at the expense of humanity. 7. Booze, smoke and others, try all for experience if you desire, so long as they don't end up owning you. 8. Learn from everything and everyone, but pledge allegiance to no one. 9. No weapons, period - except in intensely exceptional circumstances like the Ukraine invasion. 10. Love is the supreme religion, love is the supreme law, love is the supreme science.
Abhijit Naskar (Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was)
Today, what you think of this past, how you relate to it, determines what you think about the future of Ukraine. And what you think of the past is quite likely to be bound up with the history of your own family and where you live. This is true for the Donbass, a mining region, just as it is for anywhere else. People came from all over the Soviet Union to work and settle in this flat land pockmarked by pyramids and hills of slag and scruffy little mining and industrial towns. Donetsk was a working-class mining town. For many of its inhabitants then, Ukraine, which had been part of imperial Russia, was not a land where they had roots. With the demise of the Soviet Union it was harder for many of these people, almost all of whom spoke Russian as their first language, to identify with or to love Ukraine as their own country
Tim Judah (In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine)
The qualities of a successful military strategist will change from person to person, but there are a central few that all of them need. These include, above all else, strategic judgment, but also stamina, interpersonal skills and a feel for people; an ability to energize, inspire and motivate; the ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing; a degree of personal presence and charisma; a sincere love of servicemen and women; an ability to be tough when needed, but also compassionate when that is appropriate; fortitude in the face of adversity and the capacity to stay calm in the midst of chaos; an ability to deal with setbacks, missteps and mistakes; a sense of what leadership style is required to bring out the best in those immediately below, and also for the organization collectively. A great strategic leader also needs to be able to foresee how a conflict will end.
David H. Petraeus (Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine)
He does everything for little Vladi that little Vladi can’t do for himself: pisses on European unity, pisses on human rights, pisses on NATO. Assures us that Crimea and Ukraine belong to the Holy Russian Empire, the Middle East belongs to the Jews and the Saudis, and to hell with the world order. And you Brits, what do you do? You suck his dick and invite him to tea with your Queen. You take our black money and wash it for us. You welcome us if we’re big enough crooks. You sell us half London. You wring your hands when we poison our traitors and you say please, please, dear Russian friends, trade with us. Is this what I risked my life for? I don’t believe so. I believe you Brits sold me a cartload of hypocritical horseshit. So don’t tell me you’ve come here to remind me of my liberal conscience and my Christian values and my love of your great big British Empire. That would be an error. Do you understand me?
John Le Carré (Agent Running in the Field)
The most important thing that is happening in the world right now is the emerging of the new man. Since the monkeys, man has remained the same, but a great revolution is on it's way. When monkeys became man, it created the mind. With the new man, a great revolution will bring the soul in. Man will not just be a mind, a psychological being, he will be a spiritual being. This new consciousness, this new being, is the most important thing, which is happening in the world today. But the old man will be against the emerging of the new man, the old man will be against this new consciousness. The new man is a matter of life and death, it is a question of the survival of the whole earth. It is matter of survival of consciousness, of survival of life itself. The old man has become utterly destructive. The old man is preparing for a global suicide right now. Rather than allowing the new man, the old man would rather destroy the whole earth, destroying life itself. The old destructive man is preparing right now for a third world war. The global economical and political elite and the war industrial complex in the U.S, which runs the foreign policy of the U.S, is right now promoting for a third world war. The U.S. has over thrown the democratically elected government in Ukraine in an secret operation by the CIA, the world's largest terrorist organization, and replaced it with a fascistic regime, a marionette for the U.S. The war industrial complex is now desperately trying to promote the third war by demonizing, lying and blaming Russia. We see the same aggression and lies from the U.S. that we have seen before against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Venezuela and Iran. President Eisenhower warned against the war industrial complex, which he considered the largest threat to democracy. President John F. Kennedy also warned against a "secret conspiracy" against democracy. The war industrial complex consists of the international banks, oil companies, war industry, democratically elected politicians, conservative think tanks, international mainstream media and global companies, who make profits from human suffering and wars. The European governments and the mainstream media also cooperate with the war industrial complex to bring the world into disaster. But this time it will not work as the time for wars is over, and peace loving people and people who represent the new man are working against this kind of aggression.
Swami Dhyan Giten
But Kievan Rus’s glory days were short-lived. Lying on his deathbed in 1054 Yaroslav had pleaded with his offspring to ‘love one another’ for ‘If ye dwell in envy and dissension, quarrelling with one another, then ye will perish yourselves and bring to ruin the land of your ancestors . . .’11
Anna Reid (Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine)
The arrangement fell to pieces at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the disastrous hetmanate of that most un-Cossack of Cossacks – Ivan Mazeppa. Suave and subtle, famous for his love affairs and his deft hand at political intrigue, Mazeppa was an even unlikelier rebel than Khmelnytsky. Born into a noble Orthodox family in Polish-ruled ‘right-bank’ Ukraine, he was schooled at a Jesuit college in Warsaw before entering the court of King Jan Kazimierz as a gentleman-in-waiting. Keen to create a cadre of Ruthenian nobles loyal to the crown, Kazimierz sent him to study in Holland before putting him to work on diplomatic errands to the left-bank hetmanate. In 1663 the promising young favourite suddenly left Cracow and joined the Polish-ruled Cossacks on the western bank of the Dnieper. Legend – as embroidered by everyone from Byron to Tchaikovsky – has it that he had been discovered in bed with the wife of a neighbour, who stripped him naked and sent him galloping off into the steppe on the back of a wild horse. Whatever the truth, Mazeppa spent the next few years travelling back and forth to the Crimean khanate as the Polish Cossacks’ envoy. In 1674, journeying home from one of these missions, he was captured by the Zaporozhians and turned over to the rival left-bank hetmanate as a spy. At this
Anna Reid (Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine)
Ann has her Ukraine and Ukraine has its Ann.
Ann Romanenko (Ukraine, I Wrote About)
Christianity cannot be reduced to sentimental compassion, because it must be just. Compassionate Europeans need to realize that by taking Russians out of responsibility, they are actually doing them a disservice. Because the crime of the Russian state in Ukraine, not understood as a sin and not brought out of the soul through repentance, will inevitably lead to an even worse sin. To truly love the Russians is precisely to reveal to them the scale of their crime, to allow them to be horrified by what they have done, and to direct their souls to sincere repentance before God and men. Only after the collective Russian soul stumbles before the burden of its own responsibility and washes away tears of repentance before the victims, only then will it open the door to the future.
Мирослав Маринович
About Ukraine. The West is crying not because people are dying, they are just crying because white European people are dying. Another hand, in many parts of the world, from Palestine to Yamman, there are also people dying but nobody crying for them, no company suspending their work and no country imposing sanctions on the oppressor country.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
It could be said that loss lives within us and around us, comfortably. Like a scar, or a separation from a loved one, we don’t “survive” it, or erase it but, rather, place it permanently in a part of our daily lives that learns to accept it, and be grateful for what it teaches us: it enriches us with an attachment to a memory of someone, or something, affecting us profoundly.
Tetyana Denford (The Child of Ukraine)
Mr. Zelenskyy thinks he was assigned a movie project, titled "Foolish Brave President ". Shooting has started but it has no pack-up date, devastated cities, villages are the artificial movie setup, producer's money, so he doesn't care. There are no refugees also. 3 million citizens who fled are actually junior artists. millions of junior artists. There are working in this movie, 3 million have already returned home after playing their role. Shooting is also going live on telecast. He's glad to feel happy as the world media appreciates his acting, so throughout he's enjoying playing this role. And he's damn sure he will be entitled to each and every award. His character has deep emotions, touching drama, great actions, but the very important thing is completely missing, which is the main character of the leader. Diplomacy and citizens' safety policy !!!
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
I hate war. Everything is bad about war. Pain, wounds, death, loss, tears and cruel memories for all life. But, once somebody told me, when everything is going negative, try to find out something positive there and this is life. Nowadays, everything is going badly in this world, but maybe after the Ukraine and Russia conflict one thing has been settled down. Maybe now no country will give their soil to illegitimate partners to use for terror against neighbouring countries.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
Dear Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in his inauguration address. “After my election win, my six-year-old son said: ‘Dad, they say on TV that Zelensky is the president…. So, it means that I am the President too?!’ At the time, it sounded funny, but later I realized that it was true. Because each of us is the president. “From now on, each of us is responsible for the country that we leave to our children,” Zelensky said. “Each of us, in his place, can do everything for the prosperity of Ukraine.” He raised his first priority: a cease-fire in the Donbas where Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces had been fighting since Putin’s 2014 invasion. “I have been often asked: What price are you ready to pay for the cease-fire? It’s a strange question,” Zelensky said. “What price are you ready to pay for the lives of your loved ones? I can assure that I’m ready to pay any price to stop the deaths of our heroes. I’m definitely not afraid to make difficult decisions and I’m ready to lose my fame, my ratings, and if need be without any hesitation, my position to bring peace, as long as we do not give up our territories. “History is unfair,” Zelensky added. “We are not the ones who have started this war. But we are the ones who have to finish it. “I really do not want you to hang my portraits on your office walls. Because a president is not an icon and not an idol. A president is not a portrait. Hang pictures of your children. And before you make any decision, look into their eyes,” he said. “And finally,” Zelensky concluded, “all my life I tried to do all I could so that Ukrainians laughed. That was my mission. Now I will do all I can so that Ukrainians at least do not cry anymore.
Bob Woodward (War)
Putin would not stop at Ukraine, Biden was convinced of that. The Ukraine war was now a fight for freedom and freedom loving nations everywhere. Russia had displayed shocking ineptitude in the opening hours and days of the war, piercing the mythology that the Russian army was a formidable, super-capable fighting force.
Bob Woodward (War)
Seth could see that it would not be long before Ukraine, which currently enforces a ban on GMO products, became a card-carrying pro-GMO member, just as the United States had become, without the people even being aware of it.
Kenneth Eade (To Russia for Love (Involuntary Spy #2))
... Lies and lies... lies ... not understanding properly ... Dexter always keep's a distance... always he lies... soona.... that's how it follows “It’s simple human nature to keep little secrets about ourselves. We all do it.” – Dexter “I have to keep my secret safe otherwise my life – her life – will never be the same.” “She’s not as comfortable lying to the world as I am.” – Dexter “Even if I’ve put Deb in the uncomfortable position of lying for me, at least I’ve kept the bigger truth from her.” – Dexter “When you’re losing control of your entire life it helps to focus on what you’re good at – my little secret.” – Dexter “I shouldn’t be doing a kill now. The irony is that’s the only way I can maintain control, the only way I can keep this from Deb.” – Dexter “How careless were you? One first class, one-way ticket to Kiev, Ukraine, leaving in less than two hours? Very careless.” – Dexter “We do everything by the book. We’re cops, not killers.” – Deb “Being a killer would feel so very good right about now.” – Dexter “When will she believe me? What happens if she never does?” – Dexter “If you think she’s upset now, that’s nothing compared to how she’d feel if she learned what you are. She’d be terrified.” – Harry “Dex, she loves who she thinks you are. If she ever saw the real you, she’d never get over it.” – Harry “I need control. I’m trying to make things go back to the way they were.” – Dexter “Oh my God! An employee and a pervert. I don’t know which wall you go to.” – Quinn
Deyth Banger
as alexander hamilton who shared my name with one phillp skylar my mother, and my father eliza who i told to steal my identy in the war, iam nothign more then proud of the work on my deathbed writing again. i always surive true imoratlity and amenia disorder wtih life like reborn disorders cant be cured. but as alexian smith the former princess diana and smauel sabery you just seem unread. unscripted. and missed the point of the burnings of heart and bon fires in reetribution to racism in state and notion. You miss the point of what occured or whatever relaxed to it. I dont hate having multiple personaltiis. or living forever in stupid wayward ideas. that donald bloke has a diosrder called idiocy where hes accidently racist and you liked him for that. no i still dont hate you as avery pines. and no matter what occured when i was tortured in stupid situations, worst then a single one and counting somehow creepily for all of them, because my dad was and i was not. you must understand the history of why it was a town you now never knew of the name of. and why it was occurance and why it was the stories of it. And why nobody knew the musical hamilton was about my father alexander of americas presdient and me the secretary of state. my real name is adam snowflake. and if you loved a dam thing i ever wrteo from death note to creepy stalkings or the kingdom diaries or lspds, and what i built at disney naimating snow white and aruara and filming hawkuseris abotu my lack of faith as scince lik ebuilding jeeus you would know i never often resented it after highschool. and its better to remember a dead name as dead. i am not the evil events that defined me. but i am all the pain of them. and that is my wolrd. And you are ar acit for demanding i be things liek civil war or holocuast. and you are a racist slutty loser like i and bad king actors were steryped to be. and no matter what ever occured or how casuality is evil when in office. i want you to know no matter what i study or why i dress. its th history of me being an emo teenage fagot, and my mother was abusive as reya. and just interputed me to scream her ass off as reya fine an adbucter when orphaned. its easy to blame a color when the person is faceless. did you know im half that story. and did you know in the way i looked like the one you liked? When you have a boogie man, its so easy to hate the things you try to stop. Fuck you ukraine im jewish. and i know what you took. and while i didnt go. Oh god can i never go by frank again as someone in a clsoet room who surived that. and i want you to know as adam i will never be what you did to me. but oh god did you amke it look liket he people from russia fuck you royal.
Adam snowflake
I have a writer's imagination, so I would just imagine the horrors happening anyway. It's like when something happens to someone you love and you imagine them in hospital, but when you get there you see that this person is hurt but they'e alive, and it's easier. Well, it's the same with the cities and villages.
Victoria Amelina
If World War hits this world right now in 2022. I don't know how much damage it will do to the world. But two things I can write on paper. These are damn sure. Post war 1st, 60 to 70 percent of European countries on the new world map will disappear. 2nd, there will be an absolute new world order fully dominated by India, Russia and China.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
When a nation stays neutral, it's a sovereign country with free will, but when it joins a bloc like NATO, it becomes an army base of an over-ambitious superpower that wants to control world order.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
The world should remember, genocide and war crime licenses issued by the government are only owned by the US and the Eu. Others will all be prosecuted for genocide, war crimes and for illegal use of a license also.
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
War is Expensive (The Sonnet) War is expensive, peace is free, Yet war is petty, peace is priceless. War is childish, peace is for adults, Yet war is complex, peace is child's play. War is for fools, peace is for the sage, Yet sages sustain war, deeming peace foolish. War is strain on the brain, peace only needs love, Yet intellectuals justify war, calling peace rubbish. War is good for maintaining control over the people, Hence imperialists peddle war in the name of justice. But all imperialists are the fault of the civilians, All wars are a failure of our civilized citizenship. No war is tougher than the civilians of the world. Exercise that potential to abolish all imperial gall.
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
An informative tale, told with buoyancy, poignancy, anger, and love - Kirkus Reviews Kochan offers reflections on life in the Old Country and the upheaval of World War II that led to his 1948 immigration to Canada. This posthumously published memoir, compiled and edited by his daughter, Christine Kochan Foster, and collaborator Mark Collins Jenkins, is both a personal tale and a story of generations of Ukrainians longing for national independence. The author was born in 1923 in the small village of Tudorkovychi, then part of eastern Poland; nearly all the roughly 1,200 inhabitants were Ukrainians. To the east was Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. During his early years, Kochan was raised by his paternal grandparents; he later learned that his parents had divorced. His father lived in another town and was a member of the Polish Parliament; his mother had returned to her parents’ farm, close to Kochan’s home. In the fall of 1930, the then-7-year-old author witnessed his first example of the endemic ethnic and political conflicts in Eastern Europe: Polish troops marched through his village hunting for members of the more violent of two Ukrainian Separatist groups. The narrative is packed with lavish imagery of the Ukrainian countryside and is encyclopedic in its detailing of local culinary, social, and religious customs. It’s also a tale of the author’s hair-raising adventures as he moved from town to town, and country to country, trying to continue his education as Europe moved closer to war. Overall, this is not only an engaging portrait of World War II from the perspective of European civilians caught in its midst, but also a timely one; in 2015, when Russia annexed Crimea, Kochan’s daughter asked her elderly father whether he thought Russia would stop with that acquisition: “They’ll be back,” he replied, presciently. “They always come back.
Christine Kochan Foster (A Generation of Leaves; A Ukrainian Journey 1923-1948)
She understood that unrequited love could break a heart, but there was nothing she could do about his sorrow.
Diana Stevan (Sunflowers Under Fire)
I am so glad to be with my dear friend. Often things and people try to keep us apart, but the love that we have for each other and the goodness of God’s universe ensures that we shall meet. The first time that the South African government refused him a visa—when he was going to come to my eightieth birthday—I asked him, ‘How many divisions do you have in your army? Why is China scared of you?’ And that is what surprises me—maybe they are right—a spiritual leader is something that should be taken very seriously. We hope that God’s world will become a better place, more hospitable to goodness, more hospitable to compassion, more hospitable to generosity, more hospitable to living together so we don’t have what is happening now between Russia and the Ukraine, or what is happening with ISIS, or what is happening in Kenya or Syria. They make God weep.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World)