"There was nothing worth saving in what the Nazis built — but could any non-fanatic plausibly say that everything German has been so tainted by Nazism that all expressions of Germanness should be annihilated? Of course not. Nor did the evil of Soviet communism negate the greatness of Russian culture. Both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks, though, worked systematically to eliminate any perspective that challenged their respective ideologies — and not just their political monopolies. As proper totalitarians, they knew that cementing their power required controlling the culture’s memory."

“There really is a difference between hard totalitarianism and soft totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is a mindset before it is anything else. Totalitarianism is the idea that there is no area of life that is free from politics — and that also means cultural politics.”

“I fear that there will be blood. I hope and pray that there won’t be, and I will be looking for any way to avoid it.”

“Character is destiny.”

“The more I dug into Russian history, the better I understood where the radicalism came from. Ordinary Russian people had been kept down for so long that they were willing to believe that anything would be better than what they had. So, Russia had a revolution, and it got incomparably worse.”

“This story is not going to end with humanity completely vanquishing white supremacy, black supremacy, or any evil at all. Our hearts are too crooked for that. But we have it on good authority that the story ends — no thanks to us — with the defeat of evil and its poisoned fruit, death. It already has, for those with eyes to see and hearts willing to receive the good news.”

“To be able to see God and hear God requires faith. And faith requires humility, and commitment. You cannot know what the sea feels and tastes like if you will never leave the beach.”