“I'm a big believer in the collective unconscious. The idea that there is a deep connection between all of us that goes back to our ancestors and forward to the people who will come after us. It's essentially the job of the artist to anchor that nebulous space, and I think that's what a writer does: goes to that strange place and brings back these little trinkets. The unspoken experience percolated throughout the generations allows you to have knowledge of things you wouldn't know first hand.” PeopleThinkingArtistStrangeBelieverUnconsciousAncestor Author:Miroslav Penkov
“One of the things people often say about America is that it's a such a young country, relatively, and its problem - Europeans say this - is that they have no memory. I don't agree with this. In the Balkans, the problem is that we cannot forget. The problem is we have great memory.” PeopleCountryProblemMemoriesForgetAgreeGreat Memories Author:Miroslav Penkov
“The problem is we bear grudges that go a thousand years into the past. Really, I could find people who begrudge the Greeks for doing awful things to the Bulgarians more than a thousand years ago.” PeopleProblemPastGreekGrudge Author:Miroslav Penkov
“All these wars, all these territories. For example, Macedonia is a disputed territory, and there are people directly to the west of Bulgaria who are in Serbia now because of where they lived when the borders were drawn but who are Bulgarian. It makes the Balkans an insanely interesting place to explore.” PeopleWarInteresting Author:Miroslav Penkov
