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I have the whole Table of Elements in my body. I'm still wracked by malaria. Not long ago I had a few teeth pulled, one after the other, and in my pain and shock I began to talk. The dentist, a woman, looked at me almost in disgust: "A mouth full of blood, and he wants to talk ..." At that moment I realized I would never be able to talk honestly about anything again. Everyone thinks of us like that: mouths full of blood, and we want to talk.
-- "Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War" by Svetlana Alexievich, page 10
