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Cross Out As Many Adjectives And Adverbs As You Can. ... It Is Comprehensible When I Write: "the Man Sat On The Grass," Because It Is Clear And Does Not Detain One's Attention. On The Other Hand, It Is Difficult To Figure Out And Hard On The Brain If I Write: "the Tall, Narrow-chested Man Of Medium Height And With A Red Beard Sat Down On The Green Grass That Had Already Been Trampled Down By The Pedestrians, Sat Down Silently, Looking Around Timidly And Fearfully." The Brain Can't Grasp All That At Once, And Art Must Be Grasped At Once, Instantaneously.

-Anton Chekhov

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Anton Chekhov

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Cross Out As Many Adjectives And Adverbs As You Can. ... It Is Comprehensible When I Write: "the Man Sat On The Grass," Because It Is Clear And Does Not Detain One's Attention. On The Other Hand, It Is Difficult To Figure Out And Hard On The Brain If I Write: "the Tall, Narrow-chested Man Of Medium Height And With A Red Beard Sat Down On The Green Grass That Had Already Been Trampled Down By The Pedestrians, Sat Down Silently, Looking Around Timidly And Fearfully." The Brain Can't Grasp All That At Once, And Art Must Be Grasped At Once, Instantaneously.

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I Promise To Be A Splendid Husband, But Give Me A Wife Who, Like The Moon, Won't In My Sky Every Day...

One Must Never Place A Loaded Rifle On The Stage If It Isn't Going To Go Off. It's Wrong To Make Promises You Don't Mean To Keep.

We Old Bachelors Smell Like Dogs, Do We? So Be It. But I Must Take Issue With Your Claim That Doctors Who Treat Female Illnesses Are Womanizers And Cynics At Heart. Gynecologists Deal With Savage Prose The Likes Of Which You Have Never Dreamed Of.

Those Who Come A Hundred Or Two Hundred Years After Us Will Despise Us For Having Lived Our Lives So Stupidly And Tastelessly. Perhaps They'll Find A Means To Be Happy.

I Am Not A Liberal, Not A Conservative, Not A Believer In Gradual Progress, Not A Monk. I Should Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing More.

People Don't Notice Whether It's Winter Or Summer When They're Happy.

I Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

Formerly, When I Would Feel A Desire To Understand Someone, Or Myself, I Would Take Into Consideration Not Actions, In Which Everything Is Relative, But Wishes. Tell Me What You Want And I'll Tell You Who You Are.

The Thirst For Powerful Sensations Takes The Upper Hand Both Over Fear And Over Compassion For The Grief Of Others.

You Only Have To Start A Job Of Work To Realize How Few Decent, Honest Folk There Are About.

To Believe In God Is Not Hard. Inquisitors, Byron And Arakcheev Believed In Him. No, Believe In Man!

The Unhappy Are Egotistical, Base, Unjust, Cruel, And Even Less Capable Of Understanding One Another Than Are Idiots. Unhappinessdoes Not Unite People, But Separates Them.

A Sweet Lie Is More Gracious For Us Than A Virulent But Real Truth.

I Often Wonder: Suppose We Could Begin Life Over Again, Knowing What We Were Doing? Suppose We Could Use One Life, Already Ended, As A Sort Of Rough Draft For Another? I Think That Every One Of Us Would Try, More Than Anything Else, Not To Repeat Himself, At The Very Least He Would Rearrange His Manner Of Life, He Would Make Sure Of Rooms Like These, With Flowers And Light ... I Have A Wife And Two Daughters, My Wife's Health Is Delicate And So On And So On, And If I Had To Begin Life All Over Again I Would Not Marry. ... No, No!

A Man Can Deceive His Fiancee Or His Mistress As Much As He Likes And, In The Eyes Of A Woman He Loves, An Ass May Pass For A Philosopher. But A Daughter Is A Different Matter.

In Nature A Repulsive Caterpillar Turns Into A Lovely Butterfly. But With Human Beings It Is The Other Way Round: A Lovely Butterfly Turns Into A Repulsive Caterpillar.

An Artist's Flair Is Sometimes Worth A Scientist's Brains.

Time Will Pass, And We Shall Go Away For Ever, And We Shall Be Forgotten, Our Faces Will Be Forgotten, Our Voices, And How Many There Were Of Us; But Our Sufferings Will Pass Into Joy For Those Who Will Live After Us, Happiness And Peace Will Be Established Upon Earth, And They Will Remember Kindly And Bless Those Who Have Lived Before.

...and With A Burning Pain In My Heart I Realized How Unnecessary, How Petty, And How Deceptive All That Had Hindered Us From Loving Was. I Understood That When You Love You Must Either, In Your Reasonings About That Love, Start From What Is Highest, From What Is More Important Than Happiness Or Unhappiness, Sin Or Virtue In Their Accepted Meaning, Or You Must Not Reason At All.

An Enormously Vast Field Lies Between "god Exists" And "there Is No God." The Truly Wise Man Traverses It With Great Difficulty. A Russian Knows One Or The Other Of These Two Extremes, But Is Not Interested In The Middle Ground. He Usually Knows Nothing, Or Very Little.

Try To Reason About Love, And You Will Lose Your Reason.

Probably Nature Itself Gave Man The Ability To Lie So That In Difficult And Tense Moments He Could Protect His Nest, Just As Do The Vixen And Wild Duck.

The Leaves Did Not Stir On The Trees, Grasshoppers Chirruped, And The Monotonous Hollow Sound Of The Sea Rising Up From Below, Spoke Of The Peace, Of The Eternal Sleep Awaiting Us. So It Must Have Sounded When There Was No Yalta, No Oreanda Here; So It Sounds Now, And It Will Sound As Indifferently And Monotonously When We Are All No More. And In This Constancy, In This Complete Indifference To The Life And Death Of Each Of Us, There Lies Hid, Perhaps, A Pledge Of Our Eternal Salvation, Of The Unceasing Movement Of Life Upon Earth, Of Unceasing Progress Towards Perfection.

Sometimes We Go To A Play And After The Curtain Has Been Up Five Minutes We Have A Sense Of Being Able To Settle Back In The Arms Of The Playwright. Instinctively We Know That The Playwright Knows His Business.

I Am Now And Have Always Been A Stranger To The Realm Of Practical Matters.

If One Wants To Lead A Good Life, A Human Life, One Must Work.

When A Person Is Born, He Can Embark On Only One Of Three Roads Of Life: If You Go Right, The Wolves Will Eat You; If You Go Left, You’ll Eat The Wolves; If You Go Straight, You’ll Eat Yourself.

If You Cry ''forward'' You Must Be Sure To Make Clear The Direction In Which To Go. Don't You See That If You Fail To Do That And Simply Call Out The Word To A Monk And A Revolutionary, They Will Go In Precisely Opposite Directions?

I Will Begin With What In My Opinion Is Your Lack Of Restraint. You Are Like A Spectator In A Theatre Who Expresses His Enthusiasm So Unrestrainedly That He Prevents Himself And Others From Hearing. That Lack Of Restraint Is Particularly Noticeable In The Descriptions Of Nature With Which You Interrupt Dialogues; When One Reads Them, These Descriptions, One Wishes They Were More Compact, Shorter, Say Two Or Three Lines.

In Countries Where There Is A Mild Climate, Less Effort Is Expended On The Struggle With Nature And Man Is Kinder And More Gentle.

Your Talent Sets You Apart: If You Were A Toad Or A Tarantula, Even Then, People Would Respect You, For To Talent All Things Are Forgiven.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

The Desire To Serve The Common Good Must Without Fail Be A Requisite Of The Soul, A Necessity For Personal Happiness; If It Issuesnot From There, But From Theoretical Or Other Considerations, It Is Not At All The Same Thing.

The Bourgeoisie Is Very Fond Of So-called Practical Types And Novels With Happy Endings, Since They Soothe It With The Idea That One Can Both Accumulate Capital And Preserve Innocence, Be A Beast And At The Same Time Be Happy...

Do Silly Things. Foolishness Is A Great Deal More Vital And Healthy Than Our Straining And Striving After A Meaningful Life.

When Describing Nature, A Writer Should Seize Upon Small Details, Arranging Them So That The Reader Will See An Image In His Mind After He Closes His Eyes. For Instance: You Will Capture The Truth Of A Moonlit Night If You'll Write That A Gleam Like Starlight Shone From The Pieces Of A Broken Bottle, And Then The Dark, Plump Shadow Of A Dog Or Wolf Appeared. You Will Bring Life To Nature Only If You Don't Shrink From Similes That Liken Its Activities To Those Of Humankind.

There Are No Small Number Of People In This World Who, Solitary By Nature, Always Try To Go Back Into Their Shell Like A Hermit Crab Or A Snail.

You Are Right In Demanding That An Artist Approach His Work Consciously, But You Are Confusing Two Concepts: The Solution Of A Problem And The Correct Formulation Of A Problem. Only The Second Is Required Of The Artist.

If I Were Asked To Chose Between Execution And Life In Prison I Would, Of Course, Chose The Latter. It's Better To Live Somehow Than Not At All.

Capital Punishment

Watching A Woman Make Russian Pancakes, You Might Think That She Was Calling On The Spirits Or Extracting From The Batter The Philosopher's Stone.

And Only Now, When He Was Gray-haired, Had He Fallen In Love Properly, Thoroughly, For The First Time In His Life.

Why Are We Worn Out? Why Do We, Who Start Out So Passionate, Brave, Noble, Believing, Become Totally Bankrupt By The Age Of Thirty Or Thirty-five? Why Is It That One Is Extinguished By Consumption, Another Puts A Bullet In His Head, A Third Seeks Oblivion In Vodka, Cards, A Fourth, In Order To Stifle Fear And Anguish, Cynically Tramples Underfoot The Portrait Of His Pure, Beautiful Youth? Why Is It That, Once Fallen, We Do Not Try To Rise, And, Having Lost One Thing, We Do Not Seek Another? Why?

The Wealthy Man Is Not He Who Has Money, But He Who Has The Means To Live In The Luxurious State Of Early Spring.

To Make A Face From Marble Means To Remove From The Slab Everything That Is Not The Face

Country Acquaintances Are Charming Only In The Country And Only In The Summer. In The City In Winter They Lose Half Of Their Appeal.

Everyone Judges Plays As If They Were Very Easy To Write. They Don't Know That It Is Hard To Write A Good Play, And Twice As Hardand Tortuous To Write A Bad One.

Here I Am With You & Yet Not For A Single Moment Do I Forget That There's An Unfinished Novel Waiting For Me.

To A Chemist, Nothing On Earth Is Unclean. A Writer Must Be As Objective As A Chemist; He Must Abandon The Subjective Line; He Must Know That Dungheaps Play A Very Respectable Part In A Landscape, And That Evil Passions Are As Inherent In Life As Good Ones.

It Is A Bad Thing If A Writer Tackles A Subject He Does Not Understand.

When Asked, "why Do You Always Wear Black?", He Said, "i Am Mourning For My Life.

It Doesn't Matter That Your Painting Is Small. Kopecks Are Also Small, But When A Lot Are Put Together They Make A Ruble. Each Painting Displayed In A Gallery And Each Good Book That Makes It Into A Library, No Matter How Small They May Be, Serve A Great Cause: Accretion Of The National Wealth.

In My Head There Is A Whole Army Of People Asking To Be Let Out And Waiting For The Word Of Command.

Every Coming Year Is As Bad As The Previous One, The Only Difference Being That In Most Cases It Is Even Worse.

One Can Prove Or Refute Anything At All With Words. Soon People Will Perfect Language Technology To Such An Extent That They'll Be Proving With Mathematical Precision That Twice Two Is Seven.

From Here, Far Away, People Seem Very Good, And That Is Natural, For In Going Away Into The Country We Are Not Hiding From People But From Our Vanity, Which In Town Among People Is Unjust And Active Beyond Measure.

There Isn't A Monday That Would Not Cede Its Place To Tuesday.

It's Worth Living Abroad To Study Up On Genteel And Delicate Manners. The Maid Smiles Continuously; She Smiles Like A Duchess On A Stage, While At The Same Time It Is Clear From Her Face That She Is Exhausted From Overwork.

It Is The Writer's Business Not To Accuse And Not To Prosecute, But To Champion The Guilty, Once They Are Condemned And Suffer Punishment.

It's Not A Matter Of Old Or New Forms; A Person Writes Without Thinking About Any Forms, He Writes Because It Flows Freely From His Soul.

Love, Respect, And Friendship Do Unite A People As Well As A Common Hatred Does.

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

Everything Is Good In Due Measure And Strong Sensations Know Not Measure.

In A Century Or Two, Or In A Millennium, People Will Live In A New Way, A Happier Way. We Won"t Be There To See It - But It"s Why We Live, Why We Work. It"s Why We Suffer. We"re Creating It. That"s The Purpose Of Our Existence. The Only Happiness We Can Know Is To Work Toward That Goal.

The Wealthy Are Always Surrounded By Hangers-on; Science And Art Are As Well.

We Learn About Life Not From Plusses Alone, But From Minuses As Well.

By Nature Servile, People Attempt At First Glance To Find Signs Of Good Breeding In The Appearance Of Those Who Occupy More Exalted Stations.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

The Illusion Which Exalts Us Is Dearer To Us Than Ten Thousand Truths.

Ah, Caviar! I Keep On Eating It, But Can Never Get My Fill. Like Olives. It's A Lucky Thing It's Not Salty.

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

I Do Not Know Why One Should Not Hunt Two Hares Even In The Literal Sense....

Life Does Not Agree With Philosophy: There Is No Happiness That Is Not Idleness, And Only What Is Useless Is Pleasurable.

That Can Not Possibly Be, Because It Could Never Possibly Be.

A Woman Is Fascinated Not By Art But By The Noise Made By Those In The Field.

When One Longs For A Drink, It Seems As Though One Could Drink A Whole Ocean-that Is Faith; But When One Begins To Drink, One Can Only Drink Altogether Two Glasses-that Is Science.

Who Keeps The Tavern And Serves Up The Drinks? The Peasant. Who Squanders And Drinks Up Money Belonging To The Peasant Commune, The School, The Church? The Peasant. Who Would Steal From His Neighbor, Commit Arson, And Falsely Denounce Another For A Bottle Of Vodka? The Peasant.

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

Better To Perish From Fools Than To Accept Praises From Them.

I Let Myself Go At The Beginning And Write With An Easy Mind, But By The Time I Get To The Middle I Begin To Grow Timid And To Fear My Story Will Be Too Long. . .that Is Why The Beginning Of My Stories Is Always Very Promising And Looks As Though I Were Starting On A Novel, And The Middle Is Huddled And Timid, And The End Is...like Fireworks.

It Seems To Me That All Of The Evil In Life Comes From Idleness, Boredom, And Psychic Emptiness, But All Of That Is Inevitable When You Become Accustomed To Living At Others' Expense.

In Moscow You Sit In A Huge Room At A Restaurant; You Know No One And No One Knows You, And At The Same Time You Don't Feel A Stranger. But Here You Know Everyone And Everyone Knows You, And Yet You Are A Stranger - A Stranger... A Stranger, And Lonely...

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

It Is Depressing To Hear The Unfortunate Or Dying Man Jest.

I Myself Smoke, But My Wife Asked Me To Speak Today On The Harmfulness Of Tobacco, So What Can I Do? If It's Tobacco, Then Let It Be Tobacco.

You Are Right In Demanding That An Artist Should Take An Intelligent Attitude To His Work, But You Confuse Two Things: Solving A Problem And Stating A Problem Correctly.

Silence Accompanies The Most Significant Expressions Of Happiness And Unhappiness: Those In Love Understand One Another Best When Silent, While The Most Heated And Impassioned Speech At A Graveside Touches Only Outsiders, But Seems Cold And Inconsequential To The Widow And Children Of The Deceased.

"do You Know," Ivan Bunin Recalls Anton Chekhov Saying To Him In 1899, Near The End Of His Too-short Life, "for How Many Years I Shall Be Read? Seven." "why Seven?" Bunin Asked. "well," Chekhov Answered, "seven And A Half Then."

He Had Two Lives: One, Open, Seen And Known By All Who Cared To Know, Full Of Relative Truth And Of Relative Falsehood, Exactly Like The Lives Of His Friends And Acquaintances; And Another Life Running Its Course In Secret. And Through Some Strange, Perhaps Accidental, Conjunction Of Circumstances, Everything That Was Essential, Of Interest And Of Value To Him, Everything In Which He Was Sincere And Did Not Deceive Himself, Everything That Made The Kernel Of His Life, Was Hidden From Other People.

Just As I Shall Lie Alone In The Grave, So, In Essence, Do I Live Alone.

It's Easier To Write About Socrates Than About A Young Woman Or A Cook.

In All My Life I Never Met Anyone So Frivolous As You Two, So Crazy And Unbusinesslike. I Tell You In Plain Russian Your Property Is Going To Be Sold And You Don't Seem To Understand What I Say.

The People I Am Afraid Of Are The Ones Who Look For Tendentiousness Between The Lines And Are Determined To See Me As Either Liberal Or Conservative. I Am Neither Liberal, Nor Conservative, Nor Gradualist, Nor Monk, Nor Indifferentist. I Would Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing Else, And I Regret God Has Not Given Me The Strength To Be One.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

People's Destinies Are So Different. Some People Drag Along, Unnoticed And Boring—they're All Alike, And They're All Unhappy. Then There Are Others, Like For Instance You—you're One In A Million. You're Happy—

Once A Man Gets A Fixed Idea, There's Nothing To Be Done.

To Judge Between Good Or Bad, Between Successful And Unsuccessful Would Take The Eye Of A God.

Exquisite Nature, Daydreams, And Music Say One Thing, Real Life Another.

If You Look At Anything Long Enough, Say Just That Wall In Front Of You - It Will Come Out Of That Wall.

Women Writers Should Write A Lot If They Want To Write. Take The English Women, For Example. What Amazing Workers.

We Are Accustomed To Live In Hopes Of Good Weather, A Good Harvest, A Nice Love-affair, Hopes Of Becoming Rich Or Getting The Office Of Chief Of Police, But I've Never Noticed Anyone Hoping To Get Wiser. We Say To Ourselves: It'll Be Better Under A New Tsar, And In Two Hundred Years It'll Still Be Better, And Nobody Tries To Make This Good Time Come Tomorrow. On The Whole, Life Gets More And More Complex Every Day And Moves On Its Own Sweet Will, And People Get More And More Stupid, And Get Isolated From Life In Ever-increasing Numbers.

When All Is Said And Done, No Literature Can Outdo The Cynicism Of Real Life; You Won't Intoxicate With One Glass Someone Who Has Already Drunk Up A Whole Barrel.

Satiation, Like Any State Of Vitality, Always Contains A Degree Of Impudence, And That Impudence Emerges First And Foremost When The Sated Man Instructs The Hungry One.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body, Health, Intelligence, Talent, Inspiration, Love, And Absolute Freedom--freedom From Violence And Falsehood, No Matter How The Last Two Manifest Themselves.

I Abide By A Rule Concerning Reviews: I Will Never Ask, Neither In Writing Nor In Person, That A Word Be Put In About My Book.... One Feels Cleaner This Way. When Someone Asks That His Book Be Reviewed He Risks Running Up Against A Vulgarity Offensive To Authorial Sensibilities.

A Grimy Fly Can Soil The Entire Wall And A Small, Dirty Little Act Can Ruin The Entire Proceedings.

Each Of Us Is Full Of Too Many Wheels, Screws And Valves To Permit Us To Judge One Another On A First Impression Or By Two Or Three External Signs.

First Impression

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

Only Entropy Comes Easy.

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

Let Us Learn To Appreciate There Will Be Times When The Trees Will Be Bare, And Look Forward To The Time When We May Pick The Fruit.

I Was Oppressed With A Sense Of Vague Discontent And Dissatisfaction With My Own Life, Which Was Passing So Quickly And Uninterestingly, And I Kept Thinking It Would Be A Good Thing If I Could Tear My Heart Out Of My Breast, That Heart Which Had Grown So Weary Of Life.

I Have The Feeling That I've Seen Everything, But Failed To Notice The Elephants.

One Must Not Put A Loaded Rifle On The Stage If No One Is Thinking Of Firing It.

He Is An Emancipated Thinker Who Is Not Afraid To Write Foolish Things.

In Order To Cultivate Yourself And To Drop No Lower Than The Level Of The Milieu In Which You Have Landed, It Is Not Enough To Read Pickwick And Memorize A Monologue From Faust... You Need To Work Continually Day And Night, To Read Ceaselessly, To Study, To Exercise Your Will... Each Hour Is Precious.

The Snow Has Not Yet Left The Earth But Spring Is Already Asking To Enter Your Heart.

Cross Out As Many Adjectives And Adverbs As You Can. ... It Is Comprehensible When I Write: "the Man Sat On The Grass," Because It Is Clear And Does Not Detain One's Attention. On The Other Hand, It Is Difficult To Figure Out And Hard On The Brain If I Write: "the Tall, Narrow-chested Man Of Medium Height And With A Red Beard Sat Down On The Green Grass That Had Already Been Trampled Down By The Pedestrians, Sat Down Silently, Looking Around Timidly And Fearfully." The Brain Can't Grasp All That At Once, And Art Must Be Grasped At Once, Instantaneously.

If An Intelligent, Educated, And Healthy Man Begins To Complain Of His Lot And Go Down-hill, There Is Nothing For Him To Do But To Go On Down Until He Reaches The Bottom--there Is No Hope For Him. Where Could My Salvation Come From? How Can I Save Myself? I Cannot Drink, Because It Makes My Head Ache. I Never Could Write Bad Poetry. I Cannot Pray For Strength And See Anything Lofty In The Languor Of My Soul. Laziness Is Laziness And Weakness Weakness. I Can Find No Other Names For Them. I Am Lost, I Am Lost; There Is No Doubt Of That.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

I Long To Embrace, To Include In My Own Short Life, All That Is Accessible To Man. I Long To Speak, To Read, To Wield A Hammer In A Great Factory, To Keep Watch At Sea, To Plow. I Want To Be Walking Along The Nevsky Prospect, Or In The Open Fields, Or On The Ocean - Wherever My Imagination Ranges.

There Are In Life Conjunctions Of Circumstances When The Reproach That We Are Not Voltaires Is Least Of All Appropriate.

It's Very Hard, Feeling That You're No More Than A Piece Of Unwanted Furniture In This World.

Everyone Has The Same God; Only People Differ.

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

A Man Who Doesn't Drink Is Not, In My Opinion, Fully A Man.

A Man And A Woman Marry Because Both Of Them Do Not Know What To Do With Themselves.

Only Those Young People Can Be Accepted As Healthy Who Refuse To Be Reconciled With The Old Order And Foolishly Or Wisely Struggle Against It - Such Is The Will Of Nature...

An Actress Without Talent, Forty Years Old, Ate A Partridge For Dinner, And I Felt Sorry For The Partridge, For It Occurred To Me That In Its Life It Had Been More Talented, More Sensible, And More Honest Than The Actress.

Try To Be Original In Your Play And As Clever As Possible; But Don't Be Afraid To Show Yourself Foolish; We Must Have Freedom Of Thinking, And Only He Is An Emancipated Thinker Who Is Not Afraid To Write Foolish Things.

The Role Of The Artist Is To Ask Questions, Not Answer Them.

Art, Especially The Stage, Is An Area Where It Is Impossible To Walk Without Stumbling. There Are In Store For You Many Unsuccessful Days And Whole Unsuccessful Seasons: There Will Be Great Misunderstandings And Deep Disappointments… You Must Be Prepared For All This, Expect It And Nevertheless, Stubbornly, Fanatically Follow Your Own Way.

When You Live On Cash, You Understand The Limits Of The World Around Which You Navigate Each Day. Credit Leads Into A Desert With Invisible Boundaries.

Only During Hard Times Do People Come To Understand How Difficult It Is To Be Master Of Their Feelings And Thoughts.

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

The Unhappy Are Egoistic, Spiteful, Unjust, Cruel, And Less Capable Of Understanding Each Other Than Fools. Unhappiness Does Not Bring People Together But Draws Them Apart, And Even Where One Would Fancy People Should Be United By The Similarity Of Their Sorrow, Far More Injustice And Cruelty Is Generated Than In Comparatively Placid Surroundings.

Every Person Lives His Real, Most Interesting Life Under The Cover Of Secrecy.

I Am Writing A Play Which I Probably Will Not Finish Until The End Of November. I Am Writing It With Considerable Pleasure, Though I Sin Frightfully Against The Conventions Of The Stage. It Is A Comedy With Three Female Parts, Six Male, Four Acts, A Landscape (view Of The Lake), Lots Of Talk On Literature, Little Action And Tons Of Love.

There Will Come A Time When Everybody Will Know Why, For What Purpose, There Is All This Suffering, And There Will Be No More Mysteries. But Now We Must Live ... We Must Work, Just Work!

Anna Petrovna: Never Talk To Women About Your Own Good Qualities. Let Them Find Out For Themselves.

When A Woman Isn't Beautiful, People Always Say, 'you Have Lovely Eyes, You Have Lovely Hair.'

But At The Same Time, In Reality, What A Difference There Is Between The World Today, And What It Used To Be! And With The Passage Of More Time, Some Two Or Three Hundred Years, Say, People Will Look Back At Our Own Times With Horror, Or With Sneering Laughter, Because All Of Our Present Day Life Will Appear So Clumsy, And Burdensome, Extraordinarily Inept And Strange. Yes, Certainly, What A Life It Will Be Then, What A Life!

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

Whoever Sincerely Believes That Elevated And Distant Goals Are As Little Use To Man As A Cow, That "all Of Our Problems" Come Fromsuch Goals, Is Left To Eat, Drink, Sleep, Or, When He Gets Sick Of That, To Run Up To A Chest And Smash His Forehead On Its Corner.

There Should Be More Sincerity And Heart In Human Relations, More Silence And Simplicity In Our Interactions. Be Rude When You're Angry, Laugh When Something Is Funny, And Answer When You're Asked.

You Will Not Become A Saint Through Other People's Sins.

I Agree That One Can't Dispense With The Reins And The Whip Altogether, For Knaves Find Their Way Even Into Literature, But No Thinking Will Discover A Better Police For Literature Than The Critics And The Author's Own Conscience.

This Life Of Ours...human Life Is Like A Flower Gloriously Blooming In A Meadow: Along Comes A Goat, Eats It Up---no More Flower.

And It Is The Way With Us That You May Express Disapproval Of The Sun Or The Moon, Or Anything You Like, But God Preserve You From Touching The Liberals! Heaven Forbid!

When A Person Expends The Least Amount Of Motion On One Action, That Is Grace.

People Should Be Beautiful In Every Way - In Their Faces, In The Way They Dress, In Their Thoughts, And In Their Innermost Selves.

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

Anyone Who Says The Artist's Field Is All Answers And No Questions Has Never Done Any Writing Or Had Any Dealings With Imageryyou Are Confusing Two Concepts: Answering The Questions And Formulating Them Correctly. Only The Latter Is Required Of An Author.

Tsars And Slaves, The Intelligent And The Obtuse, Publicans And Pharisees All Have An Identical Legal And Moral Right To Honor The Memory Of The Deceased As They See Fit, Without Regard For Anyone Else's Opinion And Without The Fear Of Hindering One Another.

The Task Of A Writer Is Not To Solve The Problem But To State The Problem Correctly.

But If You Had Asked Him What His Work Was, He Would Look Candidly And Openly At You With His Large Bright Eyes Through His Gold Pincenez, And Would Answer In A Soft, Velvety, Lisping Baritone: "my Work Is Literature."

A Writer Should Not So Much Write As Embroider On Paper; The Work Should Be Painstaking, Laborious.

Everything Should Be First-rate In A Person, His Face, Clothes, Soul And Thoughts.

If You Want To Work On Your Art, Work On Your Life.

In Short Stories It Is Better To Say Not Enough Than To Say Too Much, Because, Because--i Don't Know Why.

You Ask Me What Life Is. That's Like Asking What A Carrot Is. A Carrot Is A Carrot, And There's Nothing More To Know.

To Dine, Drink Champagne, Raise A Racket And Make Speeches About The People's Consciousness, The People's Conscience, Freedom Andso Forth While Servants In Tails Are Scurrying Around Your Table, Just Like Serfs, And Out In The Severe Cold On The Street Await Coachmen--this Is The Same As Lying To The Holy Spirit.

Instructing In Cures, Therapists Always Recommend That "each Case Be Individualized." If This Advice Is Followed, One Becomes Persuaded That Those Means Recommended In Textbooks As The Best, Means Perfectly Appropriate For The Template Case, Turn Out To Be Completely Unsuitable In Individual Cases.

There Ought To Be A Man With A Hammer Behind The Door Of Every Happy Man.

Posterity Will Say As Usual: "in The Past Things Were Better, The Present Is Worse Than The Past.

I Confess I Seldom Commune With My Conscience When I Write.

When Men Ask Me How I Know So Much About Men, They Get A Simple Answer: Everything I Know About Men, I Learned From Me.

People Are Far More Sincere And Good-humored At Speeding Their Parting Guests Than On Meeting Them.

My Own Experience Is That Once A Story Has Been Written, One Has To Cross Out The Beginning And The End. It Is There That We Authors Do Most Of Our Lying . . . One Must Ruthlessly Suppress Everything That Is Not Concerned With The Subject. If, In The First Chapter, You Say There Is A Gun Hanging On The Wall, You Should Make Quite Sure That It Is Going To Be Used Further On In The Story.

I Think Human Beings Must Have Faith Or Must Look For Faith, Otherwise Our Life Is Empty, Empty. To Live And Not To Know Why The Cranes Fly, Why Children Are Born, Why There Are Stars In The Sky. You Must Know Why You Are Alive, Or Else Everything Is Nonsense, Just Blowing In The Wind.

One Must Be A God To Be Able To Tell Successes From Failures Without Making A Mistake.

In Displaying The Psychology Of Your Characters, Minute Particulars Are Essential. God Save Us From Vague Generalizations! Be Sure Not To Discuss Your Hero's State Of Mind. Make It Clear From His Actions. Nor Is It Necessary To Portray Many Main Characters. Let Two People Be The Center Of Gravity In Your Story: He And She.

In Western Europe People Perish From The Congestion And Stifling Closeness, But With Us It Is From The Spaciousness.... The Expanses Are So Great That The Little Man Hasn't The Resources To Orient Himself.... This Is What I Think About Russian Suicides.

Death Can Only Be Profitable: There's No Need To Eat, Drink, Pay Taxes, Offend People, And Since A Person Lies In A Grave For Hundreds Or Thousands Of Years, If You Count It Up The Profit Turns Out To Be Enormous.

This Man, Who For Twenty-five Years Has Been Reading And Writing About Art, And In All That Time Has Never Understood Anything About Art, Has For Twenty-five Years Been Hashing Over Other People's Ideas About Realism, Naturalism And All That Nonsense; For Twenty-five Years He Has Been Reading And Writing About What Intelligent People Already Know And About What Stupid People Don't Want To Know--which Means That For Twenty-five Years He's Been Taking Nothing And Making Nothing Out Of It. And With It All, What Conceit! What Pretension!

The Time's Come: There's A Terrific Thunder-cloud Advancing Upon Us, A Mighty Storm Is Coming To Freshen Us Up....it's Going To Blow Away All This Idleness And Indifference, And Prejudice Against Work....i'm Going To Work, And In Twenty-five Or Thirty Years' Time Every Man And Woman Will Be Working.

The Critics Suppose That It Is Easy To Write A Play. They Aren't Aware That Writing A Good Play Is Difficult And Writing A Bad One Is Twice As Hard.

If I Wanted To Order A Ring For Myself, The Inscription I Should Choose Would Be: "nothing Passes Away." I Believe That Nothing Passes Away Without Leaving A Trace, And That Every Step We Take, However Small, Has Significance For Our Present And Our Future Existence.

When A Lot Of Remedies Are Suggested For A Disease, That Means It Can't Be Cured.

He Is No Longer A City Dweller Who Has Even Once In His Life Caught A Ruff Or Seen How, On Clear And Cool Autumn Days, Flocks Of Migrating Thrushes Drift Over A Village. Until His Death He Will Be Drawn To Freedom.

I Can Only Regard With Bewilderment An Educated Man Who Is Also Religious

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

Faith Is A Capacity Of The Spirit. It Is Like Talent: You Have To Be Born With It

Nothing Lulls And Inebriates Like Money; When You Have A Lot, The World Seems A Better Place Than It Actually Is.

Oh, I Don't Object, Of Course, To Cutting Wood From Necessity, But Why Destroy The Forests? The Woods Of Russia Are Trembling Under The Blows Of The Axe. Millions Of Trees Have Perished. The Homes Of The Wild Animals And Birds Have Been Desolated; The Rivers Are Shrinking, And Many Beautiful Landscapes Are Gone Forever. And Why? Because Men Are Too Lazy And Stupid To Stoop Down And Pick Up Their Fuel From The Ground.

My Mistress Has Come Home; At Last I've Seen Her. Now I'm Ready To Die.

Not One Of Our Mortal Gauges Is Suitable For Evaluating Non-existence, For Making Judgments About That Which Is Not A Person.

The More Cultured A Man, The Less Fortunate He Is.

If You Can't Distinguish People From Lap-dogs, You Shouldn't Undertake Philanthropic Work.

The Teacher Must Be An Actor, An Artist,passionately In Love With His Work.

Everything I Have Written Up To Now Is Trifling Compared To That Which I Would Like To Write And Would Write With Great Pleasureeither I Am A Fool And A Self-conceited Person, Or I Am A Being Capable Of Becoming A Good Writer; I Am Displeased And Bored With Everything Now Being Written, While Everything In My Head Interests, Moves, And Excites Me-whence I Draw The Conclusion That No One Is Doing What Is Needed, And I Alone Know The Secret Of How It Should Be Done. In All Likelihood Everyone Who Writes Thinks That. In Fact, The Devil Himself Will Be Brought To His Knees By These Questions.

Children Are Holy And Pure. Even Those Of Bandits And Crocodiles Belong Among The Angels.... They Must Not Be Turned Into A Plaything Of One's Mood, First To Be Tenderly Kissed, Then Rabidly Stomped At.

If Only One Tooth Aches, Rejoice That Not All Of Them Ache.... If Your Wife Betrays You, Be Glad That She Betrayed Only You And Not The Nation.

Fine. Since The Tea Is Not Forthcoming, Let's Have A Philosophical Conversation.

Write About This Man Who, Drop By Drop, Squeezes The Slave's Blood Out Of Himself Until He Wakes One Day To Find The Blood Of A Real Human Being--not A Slave's--coursing Through His Veins.

When One Sees One Of The Romantic Creatures Before Him He Imagines He Is Looking At Some Holy Being, So Wonderful That Its One Breath Could Dissolve Him In A Sea Of A Thousand Charms And Delights; But If One Looks Into The Soul -- It's Nothing But A Common Crocodile.

Of Course Politics Is An Interesting And Engrossing Thing. It Offers No Immutable Laws, Nearly Always Prevaricates, But As Far Asblather And Sharpening The Mind Go, It Provides Inexhaustible Material.

If In The First Act You Have Hung A Pistol On The Wall, Then In The Following One It Should Be Fired. Otherwise Don't Put It There.

My Business Is To Be Talented, That Is, To Be Capable Of Selecting The Important Moments From The Trivial Ones. . . . It's About Time For Writers - Particularly Those Who Are Genuine Artists - To Recognize That In This World You Cannot Figure Out Everything. Just Have A Writer Who The Crowds Trust Be Courageous Enough And Declare That He Does Not Understand Everything, And That Alone Will Represent A Major Contribution To The Way People Think, A Long Leap Forward.

For God's Sake, Have Some Self-respect And Do Not Run Off At The Mouth If Your Brain Is Out To Lunch.

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