This is a famous line from an equally famous movie, Dr. Zhivago. Spoken at the end of the movie by the half brother of the poet and hero of the movie, Yuri Zhivago, it was used to demonstrate the underground passion of poetry that existed even under the most oppressive Stalinist periods. Without getting into further detail of the greatness of Dr. Zhivago as a film, one of my all time favorite movies, and one particularly nice to watch in the depths of winter, such a sentiment seems to be true even today, as the following news piece attests: a man killed another man in Russia in an argument over the merits of prose verses poetry.

http://gawker.com/poetry-vs-prose-argument-leads-to-stabbing-death-in-ru-1511468174

Passion for poetry is a wonderful thing indeed. It is nice to know Russians still possess this.