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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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He Had Two Lives:

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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One Had Better Not Rush, Otherwise Dung Comes Out Rather Than Creative Work.

If Our Life Has A Meaning, An Aim, It Has Nothing To Do With Our Personal Happiness, But Something Wiser And Greater.

If You Cry 'forward', You Must Without Fail Make Plain In What Direction To Go.

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

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

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

Any Idiot Can Face A Crisis - It's Day To Day Living That Wears You Out.

You've Only Got To Begin To Do Anything To Find Out How Few Honest, Honourable People There Are. Sometimes, When I Can't Sleep, I Think: "oh Lord, You've Given Us Huge Forests, Infinite Fields, And Endless Horizons, And We, Living Here, Ought Really To Be Giants.

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

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

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—

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

What Seems To Us Serious, Significant And Important Will, In Future Times, Be Forgotten Or Won't Seem Important At All.

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?

Common Hypocrites Pass Themselves Off As Doves; Political And Literary Hypocrites Pose As Eagles. But Don't Be Fooled By Their Eagle-like Appearance. These Are Not Eagles, But Rats Or Dogs.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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.

The Government Is Not God. It Does Not Have The Right To Take Away That Which It Can't Return Even If It Wants To.

What Truth? You See Where Truth Is, And Where Untruth Is, But I Seem To Have Lost My Sight And See Nothing. You Boldly Settle All Important Questions, But Tell Me, Dear, Isn't It Because You're Young, Because You Haven't Had Time To Suffer Till You Settled A Single One Of Your Questions? You Boldly Look Forward, Isn't It Because You Cannot Foresee Or Expect Anything Terrible, Because So Far Life Has Been Hidden From Your Young Eyes? You Are Bolder, More Honest, Deeper Than We Are, But Think Only, Be Just A Little Magnanimous, And Have Mercy On Me.

Let The Things That Happen On The Stage Be Just As Complex And Yet Just As Simple As They Are In Life. For Instance, People Are Having A Meal, Just Having A Meal, But At The Same Time Their Happiness Is Being Created, Or Their Lives Are Being Smashed Up.

It Is Always "youth, Youth," When There Is Nothing Else To Be Said.

Do You Know When You May Concede Your Insignificance? Before God Or, Perhaps, Before The Intellect, Beauty, Or Nature, But Not Before People. Among People, One Must Be Conscious Of One's Dignity.

Do You Remember You Shot A Seagull? A Man Came By Chance, Saw It And Destroyed It, Just To Pass The Time.

In All The Universe Nothing Remains Permanent And Unchanged But The Spirit.

It's Easier To Ask For Money From The Poor Than From The Wealthy.

In One-act Pieces There Should Be Only Rubbish - That Is Their Strength.

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

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!

If Many Remedies Are Prescribed For An Illness You Can Be Sure It Has No Cure

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

It Is Uncomfortable To Ask Condemned People About Their Sentences Just As It Is Awkward To Ask Wealthy People Why They Need So Much Money, Why They Use Their Wealth So Poorly, And Why They Don't Just Get Rid Of It When They Recognize That It Is The Cause Of Their Unhappiness.

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

While You're Playing Cards With A Regular Guy Or Having A Bite To Eat With Him, He Seems A Peaceable, Good-humoured And Not Entirely Dense Person. But Just Begin A Conversation With Him About Something Inedible, Politics Or Science, For Instance, And He Ends Up In A Deadend Or Starts In On Such An Obtuse And Base Philosophy That You Can Only Wave Your Hand And Leave.

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

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

These People Have Learned Not From Books, But In The Fields, In The Wood, On The River Bank. Their Teachers Have Been The Birds Themselves, When They Sang To Them, The Sun When It Left A Glow Of Crimson Behind It At Setting, The Very Trees, And Wild Herbs.

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

If You Say In The First Chapter That There Is A Rifle Hanging On The Wall, In The Second Or Third Chapter It Absolutely Must Go Off. If It's Not Going To Be Fired, It Shouldn't Be Hanging There.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

Lying Is The Same As Alcoholism. Liars Prevaricate Even On Their Deathbeds.

I Expect I Shall Be A Student To The End Of My Days.

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.

Happiness Does Not Await Us All. One Needn't Be A Prophet To Say That There Will Be More Grief And Pain Than Serenity And Money. That Is Why We Must Hang On To One Another.

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.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

A Writer Is Not A Confectioner, A Cosmetic Dealer, Or An Entertainer.

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.

Can Words Such As Orthodox, Jew, Or Catholic Really Express Some Sort Of Exclusive Personal Virtues Or Merits?

Wisdom.... Comes Not From Age, But From Education And Learning.

Anna Petrovna (to Shabelsky): You Can't Make A Simple Joke Without An Injection Of Venom. You Are A Poisonous Man. Joking Apart, Count, You're Very Poisonous. It's Hideously Boring To Live With You. You're Always Grumpy, Complaining, You Find Everyone Bad, Good For Nothing. Tell Me Frankly, Count, Did You Ever Speak Well Of Anyone?

I Am Dying. I Haven't Drunk Champagne For A Long Time.

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.

A Litterateur Is Not A Confectioner, Not A Dealer In Cosmetics, Not An Entertainer. . . . He Is Just Like An Ordinary Reporter. What Would You Say If A Newspaper Reporter, Because Of His Fastidiousness Or From A Wish To Give Pleasure To His Readers, Were To Describe Only Honest Mayors, High-minded Ladies, And Virtuous Railroad Contractors.

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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.

All Of Life And Human Relations Have Become So Incomprehensibly Complex That, When You Think About It, It Becomes Terrifying And Your Heart Stands Still.

And What Does It Mean -- Dying? Perhaps Man Has A Hundred Senses, And Only The Five We Know Are Lost At Death, While The Other Ninety-five Remain Alive.

I Should Think I'm Going To Be A Perpetual Student.

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!

The Time Has Come For Writers, Especially Those Who Are Artists, To Admit That In This World One Cannot Make Anything Out, Just As Socrates Once Admitted It, Just As Voltaire Admitted It.

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

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

To Live Simply To Die Is By No Means Amusing, But To Live With The Knowledge That You Will Die Before Your Time, That's Really Is Idiotic

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.

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.

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

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

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.

He Who Doesn't Know How To Be A Servant Should Never Be Allowed To Be A Master; The Interests Of Public Life Are Alien To Anyone Who Is Unable To Enjoy Others' Successes, And Such A Person Should Never Be Entrusted With Public Affairs.

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

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.

Not Only After Two Or Three Centuries, But In A Million Years, Life Will Still Be As It Was; Life Does Not Change, It Remains For Ever, Following Its Own Laws Which Do Not Concern Us, Or Which, At Any Rate, You Will Never Find Out. Migrant Birds, Cranes For Example, Fly And Fly, And Whatever Thoughts, High Or Low, Enter Their Heads, They Will Still Fly And Not Know Why Or Where. They Fly And Will Continue To Fly, Whatever Philosophers Come To Life Among Them; They May Philosophize As Much As They Like, Only They Will Fly.

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

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

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.

Man Is What He Believes.

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

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...

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.

Better A Debauched Canary Than A Pious Wolf.

Thought And Beauty, Like A Hurricane Or Waves, Should Not Know Conventional, Delimited Forms.

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.

I Have No Will Of My Own. Never Did. Limp And Lily-livered, I Always Obey - Is It Possible That's Attractive To Women?

Love Is A Great Thing. It Is Not By Chance That In All Times And Practically Among All Cultured Peoples Love In The General Senseand The Love Of A Man For His Wife Are Both Called Love. If Love Is Often Cruel Or Destructive, The Reasons Lie Not In Love Itself, But In The Inequality Between People.

Love, Friendship And Respect Do Not Unite People As Much As Common Hatred For Something.

Doctors Are Just The Same As Lawyers; The Only Difference Is That Lawyers Merely Rob You, Whereas Doctors Rob You And Kill You Too.

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

I'm The Seagull. No, That's Not It. I'm An Actress. That's It.

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.

There Is Nothing New In Art Except Talent.

When You Describe The Miserable And Unfortunate, And Want To Make The Reader Feel Pity, Try To Be Somewhat Colder - That Seems To Give A Kind Of Background To Another's Grief, Against Which It Stands Out More Clearly. Whereas In Your Story The Characters Cry And You Sigh. Yes, Be More Cold. ... The More Objective You Are, The Stronger Will Be The Impression You Make.

Desription Should Be Very Brief And Have An Incidental Nature.

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

Lermontov Died At Age Twenty-eight And Wrote More Than Have You And I Put Together. Talent Is Recognizable Not Only By Quality, But Also By The Quantity It Yields.

A Tree Is Beautiful, But What's More, It Has A Right To Life; Like Water, The Sun And The Stars, It Is Essential. Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees. Forests Create Climate, Climate Influences Peoples' Character, And So On And So Forth. There Can Be Neither Civilization Nor Happiness If Forests Crash Down Under The Axe, If The Climate Is Harsh And Severe, If People Are Also Harsh And Severe. ... What A Terrible Future!

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

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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.

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

Be Sure Not To Discuss Your Hero's State Of Mind. Make It Clear From His Actions.

...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.

It's Even Pleasant To Be Sick When You Know That There Are People Who Await Your Recovery As They Might Await A Holiday.

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!

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

He Who Desires Nothing, Hopes For Nothing, And Is Afraid Of Nothing, Cannot Be An Artist.

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.

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.

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

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.

[ognev] Recalled Endless, Heated, Purely Russian Arguments, When The Wranglers, Spraying Spittle And Banging Their Fists On The Table, Fail To Understand Yet Interrupt One Another, Themselves Not Even Noticing It, Contradict Themselves With Every Phrase, Change The Subject, Then, Having Argued For Two Or Three Hours, Begin To Laugh.

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

There Are People Whom Even Children's Literature Would Corrupt. They Read With Particular Enjoyment The Piquant Passages In The Psalter And In The Wisdom Of Solomon.

If There Is A Gun Hanging On The Wall In The First Act, It Must Fire In The Last.

In Russia There Is No Philosophy, But Philosophize Everything, Even The Small Fry.

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

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

Life Is A Vexatious Trap; When A Thinking Man Reaches Maturity And Attains To Full Consciousness He Cannot Help Feeling That He Is In A Trap From Which There Is No Escape.

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

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

No Psychologist Should Pretend To Understand What He Does Not Understand... Only Fools And Charlatans Know Everything And Understand Nothing.

Knowledge Is Of No Value Unless You Put It Into Practice.

It Is Easier To Ask Of The Poor Than Of The Rich.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

When You Want To Touch The Reader's Heart, Try To Be Colder. It Gives Their Grief As It Were, A Background, Against Which It Stands Out In Greater Relief.

I Think That It Would Be Less Difficult To Live Eternally Than To Be Deprived Of Sleep Throughout Life.

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.

When A Person Hasn't In Him That Which Is Higher And Stronger Than All External Influences, It Is Enough For Him To Catch A Good Cold In Order To Lose His Equilibrium And Begin To See An Owl In Every Bird, To Hear A Dog's Bark In Every Sound.

There Are Plenty Of Good People, But Only A Very, Very Few Are Precise And Disciplined.

Reason And Justice Tell Me There's More Love For Humanity In Electricity And Steam Than In Chastity And Vegetarianism.

People Understand God As The Expression Of The Most Lofty Morality. Maybe He Needs Only Perfect People.

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

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

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

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

To Advise Is Not To Compel.

The World Perishes Not From Bandits And Fires, But From Hatred, Hostility, And All These Petty Squabbles.

The Stupider The Peasant, The Better The Horse Understands Him.

Critics Are Like Horse-flies Which Hinder The Horses In Their Plowing Of The Soil. The Horse Works, All Its Muscles Drawn Tight Like The Strings On A Double-bass, And A Fly Settles On His Flanks And Tickles And Buzzes. And What Does The Fly Buzz About? It Scarcely Knows Itself; Simply Because It Is Restless And Wants To Proclaim: 'look, I Too Am Living On The Earth. See, I Can Buzz, Too, Buzz About Anything.'

Dear And Most Respected Bookcase! I Welcome Your Existence, Which Has For Over One Hundred Years Been Devoted To The Radiant Ideals Of Goodness And Justice.

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.

A Good Upbringing Means Not That You Won't Spill Sauce On The Tablecloth, But That You Won't Notice It When Someone Else Does.

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

There Is No National Science, Just As There Is No National Multiplication Table; What Is National Is No Longer Science.

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 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.

For The Salvation Of His Soul The Muslim Digs A Well. It Would Be A Fine Thing If Each Of Us Were To Leave Behind A School, Or A Well, Or Something Of The Sort, So That Life Would Not Pass By And Retreat Into Eternity Without A Trace.

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.

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...

Wherever There Is Degeneration And Apathy, There Also Is Sexual Perversion, Cold Depravity, Miscarriage, Premature Old Age, Grumbling Youth, There Is A Decline In The Arts, Indifference To Science, And Injustice In All Its Forms.

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.

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.

Humankind Has Understood History As A Series Of Battles Because, To This Day, It Regards Conflict As The Central Facet Of Life.

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

A Person Loves To Talk About His Illnesses Although That Is The Least Interesting Part Of His Life.

One Usually Dislikes A Play While Writing It, But Afterward It Grows On One. Let Others Judge And Make Decisions.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

I Would Like To Be A Free Artist And Nothing Else, And I Regret God Has Not Given Me The Strength To Be One.

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.

A Woman Can Become A Man's Friend Only In The Following Stages - First An Acquantaince, Next A Mistress, And Only Then A Friend.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood! Why Does This Irrevocable Time, Forever Departed, Seem Brighter, More Festive And Richer Than It Actually Was?

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

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

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

..when One Has No Real Life, One Lives By Mirages. It's Still Better Than Nothing.

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

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

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.

What A Fine Weather Today! Can’t Choose Whether To Drink Tea Or To Hang Myself.

Moscow Is A City That Has Much Suffering Ahead Of It.

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

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

Life Is Given Only Once, And One Wants To Live It Boldly, With Full Conscious And Beauty.

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.

Once You've Married, Be Strict But Just With Your Wife, Don't Allow Her To Forget Herself, And When A Misunderstanding Arises, Say: "don't Forget That I Made You Happy.

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

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

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.

The Past,' He Thought, 'is Linked With The Present By An Unbroken Chain Of Events Flowing One Out Of Another.' And It Seemed To Him That He Had Just Seen Both Ends Of That Chain; That When He Touched One End The Other Quivered.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Russian Forests Crash Down Under The Axe, Billions Of Trees Are Dying, The Habitations Of Animals And Birds Are Laid Waste, Rivers Grow Shallow And Dry Up, Marvelous Landscapes Are Disappearing Forever.... Man Is Endowed With Creativity In Order To Multiply That Which Has Been Given Him; He Has Not Created, But Destroyed. There Are Fewer And Fewer Forests, Rivers Are Drying Up, Wildlife Has Become Extinct, The Climate Is Ruined, And The Earth Is Becoming Ever Poorer And Uglier.

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.

I Still Lack A Political, Religious And Philosophical World View - I Change It Every Month - And So I'll Have To Limit Myself To Descriptions Of How My Heroes Love, Marry, Give Birth, Die, And How They Speak.

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.

No Matter How Corrupt And Unjust A Convict May Be, He Loves Fairness More Than Anything Else. If The People Placed Over Him Are Unfair, From Year To Year He Lapses Into An Embittered State Characterized By An Extreme Lack Of Faith.

He Always Seemed To Women Different From What He Was, And They Loved In Him Not Himself, But The Man Created By Their Imagination, Whom They Had Been Eagerly Seeking All Their Lives; And Afterwards, When They Noticed Their Mistake, They Loved Him All The Same.

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