Happy Birthday, Vladimir Vladimirovich!
And speaking of happiness, a theme that I propose that we also celebrate today, here's one of my favorite passages from Speak, Memory:
I see again my schoolroom in Vyra,the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window. Its reflection fills the oval mirror above the leathern couch where my uncle sits, gloating over a tattered book. A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.
I love the mirror that reflects the window, brimming with brightness, and
the bumping bumblebee (as well as the alliterative b's that suggest its sound). Those sweeping statements at the end ("everything is," "nothing will ever," "nobody will ever") are for me the very essence of how happiness feels -- even as their wistful untruth poignantly suggests its limitation.