Babylon 5, Season 1: Signs and Portents

[during the memorial service for Ivanova's father]

Susan Ivanova:
When I was thirteen, I developed a passion for Kasharev, one of the radical neocommunist authors.

Rabbi Koslov:
Oy! Your father felt that Kasharev would be personally responsible for the destruction of Russian culture!

Ivanova:
Exactly! But he was invited to a reading by Kasharev, and I begged him to take me. Of course, he had no intention of going, but I whined and pouted as only a thirteen-year-old can, and eventually, he was forced to surrender. So, after the reading there was a question and answer session, and for days I had been formulating the perfect question with which to impress my idol. So the time comes, and I stand up, I'm trembling, and I ask my question.

Rabbi Koslov:
And?

Ivanova:
He promptly said that it was the most foolish thing that he had ever heard, and that he had no intention of bandying words with a bourgeois little twit who was barely out of diapers. [Laughs] I was crushed. But then Papa stood up. And he said that his daughter was neither bourgeois, nor a little twit, and had been out of diapers for many, many years, while Kasharev's writings had yet to rise above the contents of those garments!

Rabbi Koslov:
That sounds exactly like Andrei!

Ivanova:
He then added that were he not a man of peace, he would have horsewhipped Kasharev through the streets of St. Petersburg, as his own father should have done many years ago!

Rabbi Koslov:
Bravo, bravo!

Ivanova:
Well, of course I was mortified. But then Papa took my hand and he turned, and as we walked out, he said to me: "It was a good question, dushenka."