- Father: It seems to make me return to the place, poignantly dear to my heart, where my grandfather's house used to be in which I was born 40 years ago right on the dinner table. Each time I try to enter it, something prevents me from doing that. I see this dream again and again. And when I see those walls made of logs and the dark entrance, even in my dream I become aware that I'm only dreaming it. And the overwhelming joy is clouded by anticipation of awakening. At times something happens and I stop dreaming of the house and the pine trees of my childhood around it. Then I get depressed. And I can't wait to see this dream in which I'l be a child again and feel happy again because everything will still be ahead, everything will be possible...
- Forensic doctor: You know, I fell and found strange things here - roots, bushes... Has it ever occurred to you that plants can feel, know, even comprehend? The trees, this hazelnut bush...
- Natalya: This is an alder tree.
- Forensic doctor: It doesn't matter. They don't run about. Like us who are rushing, fussing, uttering banalities. That's because we don't trust nature that is inside us. Always this suspiciousness, haste, and no time to stop and think.
- Military trainer: What did you fire at? You think I didn't see it? You were firing up!
- Ignat: What's wrong with that? There's no one there.
- Military trainer: And what if somebody was there?
- Ignat: There's only trees there.
- Military trainer: And what if somebody climbed a tree?
- Aleksei: What is he doing?
- Natalya: He is a writer.
- Aleksei: Doesn't his name happen to be Dostoyevsky?
- Natalya: Yes, Dostoyevsky.
- Aleksei: He hasn't written anything worthwhile. Nobody knows him. He must be about 40, isn't he? Apparently he's got no talent?
- Natalya: You've changed so much.
- Aleksei: So, he has no talent, he doesn't write anything.
- Natalya: He does write, but they don't publish him.
- Natalya: You think I'm afraid?
- Printery Director: No, let other people be afraid. Some people should work, and others should be afraid.
- Aleksei: He works for a newspaper. And thinks he's a writer, too. Though he's unable to understand that a book is not a way of making money but a statement.
- Elderly Maria: What's wrong with your voice?
- Aleksei: Nothing serious. I guess it's just a sore throat. I haven't spoken to anyone for three days. I even liked it. I think it's good to keep silent for a while. Words can't express everything a person feels. Words are flaccid.
- Natalya: You won't be able to live a normal life with anyone.
- Aleksei: Probably.
- Natalya: Don't feel offended. You seem to be convinced that the very fact of your existence close by, will make everybody happy. You only know how to demand.
- Aleksei: That's because I was brought up by women. If you don't want Ignat to become like that, get married as soon as possible.
- Natalya: Get married to whom?
- Aleksei: This I don't know. Or give Ignat to me.
- Military trainer: I'm going to send you for your parents.
- Ignat: What parents?
- Military trainer: You'll know very soon what parents.
- Lisa: All your life is just that 'Bring some water!' Just an appearance of independence. If something doesn't suit you, you pretend it doesn't exist.
- Natalya: What nonsense you're talking!
- Lisa: I'm amazed at the patience of your ex-husband. He should have run away much sooner.
- Natalya: What do you want from me?
- Lisa: Have you ever admitted you were wrong? Never! You just made up the whole situation! As long as you haven't succeeded in elevating your dear husband to this nonsensical emancipated condition of yours, then you can be sure he has been saved just in time. As for your children, you will definitely make them miserable.
- Natalya: Stop this idiocy!
- Ignat: 'The division of churches separated us from Europe. We remained excluded from every great event that had shaken it. However, we had our own, special destiny. Russia, with her immense territory, had swallowed up the Mongol invasion. The Tatars didn't dare crossing our western borders. They retreated to their wilderness and Christian civilization had been saved. To attain that goal we had to lead a special kind of life which, while leaving us Christians, had made us alien to the Christian world. As for our historic insignificance, I cannot agree with you on that. Don't you find anything significant at all in today's situation in Russia that would strike a future historian? Although I'm heartily attached to our sovereign, I'm not at all delighted with everything I see around me. As a man of letters, I'm being annoyed, insulted, but I swear that for nothing in the world would have made me change my home country or have any other history than the history of our forebears, such as it was given us by God.' From Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev. October 19, 1836.
- Aleksei: When I recall my childhood and my mother, somehow she always has your face. I know why though. I pity you both, you and her.
- Aleksei: Usually we spotted our people as soon as they appeared from behind a bush in the mid-field. If he turned from the bush towards our house, then it's father. If not, it meant it was not father, and that father would never come.
- Natalya: Do you want me to call my husband?
- Forensic doctor: You haven't got any husband. There's no ring. Though people don't wear rings nowadays. Maybe only old people.
- Military trainer: About face! I commanded 'about face'! Put down your rifle.
- Ignat: That's what I did.
- Military trainer: Did you learn drill regulations?
- Ignat: About face in Russian means exactly what I did. About face means a turn of 360 degrees.
- Natalya: What do you want from your mother? What kind of relationship? The kind of relationship you had in your childhood is impossible. You speak of some feeling of guilt, of her life being ruined because of you... Well, you can't get away from it. And what she needs is for you to become a baby again, for her to be able to carry you and protect you. Why on earth am I meddling in it? It's always like this...
- Bearded Doctor: A mother dies suddenly, then the man's wife and child... A few days and the man is no more, though he was quite healthy.