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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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Instructing In Cures, Therapists

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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

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

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

There Is Nothing New In Art Except Talent.

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.

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

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

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

How Unbearable At Times Are People Who Are Happy, People For Whom Everything Works Out.

Not Everyone Knows How To Be Silent Or To Leave In Good Time. It Happens That Even People Of Good Breeding Fail To Notice That Their Presence Provokes In The Weary Or Preoccupied Host A Feeling Akin To Hatred, And That This Feeling Is Tensely Concealed And Covered Up With Lies.

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

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

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.

Even While Lying, You'll Be Believed If You Speak With Authority.

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.

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

...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.

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

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

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

It's Immoral To Steal, But You Can Take Things.

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.

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.

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

In Two Or Three Hundred Years Life On Earth Will Be Unimaginably Beautiful, Astounding. Man Needs Such A Life And If It Hasn't Yetappeared, He Should Begin To Anticipate It, Wait For It, Dream About It, Prepare For It. To Achieve This, He Has To See And Know More Than Did His Grandfather And Father.

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.

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

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

I Don't Like Being Successful; The Subjects Which Sit In My Head Are Annoyed And Jealous Of What Has Already Been Written.

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

You Don't Understand, You Fool' Says Yegor, Looking Dreamily Up At The Sky. 'you've Never Understood What Kind Of Person I Am, Nor Will You In A Million Years... You Just Think I'm A Mad Person Who Has Thrown His Life Away... Once The Free Spirit Has Taken Hold Of A Man, There's No Way Of Getting It Out Of Him.

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

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.

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

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.

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

When Performing An Autopsy, Even The Most Inveterate Spiritualist Would Have To Question Where The Soul Is.

If Ever My Life Can Be Of Any Use To You, Come And Claim It.

Write, Write, Write-till Your Fingers Break.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

When An Actor Has Money He Doesn't Send Letters, He Sends Telegrams.

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 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.

It Is Time For Writers To Admit That Nothing In This World Makes Sense. Only Fools And Charlatans Think They Know And Understand Everything. The Stupider They Are, The Wider They Conceive Their Horizons To Be. And If An Artist Decides To Declare That He Understands Nothing Of What He Sees - This In Itself Constitutes A Considerable Clarity In The Realm Of Thought, And A Great Step Forward.

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!

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

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

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.

We All Have Too Many Wheels, Screws And Valves To Judge Each Other On First Impressions Or One Or Two Pointers. I Don't Understand You, You Don't Understand Me And We Don't Understand Ourselves.

First Impression

The More Simply We Look At Ticklish Questions, The More Placid Will Be Our Lives And Relationships.

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

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

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

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.

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

You Look At Any Poetic Creature: Muslin, Ether, Demigoddess, Millions Of Delights; Then You Look Into The Soul And Find The Most Ordinary Crocodile!

What A Delight It Is To Respect People!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Perhaps Man Has A Hundred Senses, And When He Dies The Five Senses That We Know Perish With Him, And The Other Ninety-five Remain Alive... Everything That Is Unattainable For Us Now Will One Day Be Near And Clear... But We Must Work.

Then I Feel So Happy And At The Same Time So Sad, It's Unimaginable.

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

I Can't Accept "our Nervous Age," Since Mankind Has Been Nervous During Every Age. Whoever Fears Nervousness Should Turn Into A Sturgeon Or Smelt; If A Sturgeon Makes A Stupid Mistake, It Can Only Be One: To End Up On A Hook, And Then In A Pan In A Pastry Shell.

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."

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

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.

Art, Especially The Stage, Is An Area Where It Is Impossible To Walk Without Stumbling.

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

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.

Sports Are Positively Essential. It Is Healthy To Engage In Sports, They Are Beautiful And Liberal, Liberal In The Sense That Nothing Serves Quite As Well To Integrate Social Classes, Etc., Than Street Or Public Games.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

To Describe Drunkenness For The Colorful Vocabulary Is Rather Cynical. There Is Nothing Easier Than To Capitalize On Drunkards.

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

An Artist Must Only Judge Of What He Understands, His Field Is Just As Limited As That Of Any Other Specialist... That In His Sphere There Are No Questions, But Only Answers, Can Only Be Maintained By Those Who Have Never Written And Have Had No Experience Of Thinking In Images.

A Fiancé Is Neither This Nor That: He's Left One Shore, But Not Yet Reached The Other.

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

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

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

There Is Nothing More Awful, Insulting, And Depressing Than Banality.

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.

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

Life On Earth Is Inconceivable Without Trees.

If I Had Listened To The Critics I'd Have Died Drunk In The Gutter

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.

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.

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...

You Confuse Two Things: Solving A Problem And Stating A Problem Correctly. It Is Only The Second That Is Obligatory For An Artist.

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.

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

What's The Use Of Talking? You Can See For Yourself That This Is A Barbarous Country; The People Have No Morals; And The Boredom!

Is It Our Job To Judge? The Gendarme, Policemen And Bureaucrats Have Been Especially Prepared By Fate For That Job. Our Job Is Towrite, And Only To Write.

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

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

Capital Punishment Kills Immediately, Whereas Lifetime Imprisonment Does So Slowly. Which Executioner Is More Humane? The One Who Kills You In A Few Minutes, Or The One Who Wrests Your Life From You In The Course Of Many Years?

Life Is Difficult For Those Who Have The Daring To First Set Out On An Unknown Road. The Avant-garde Always Has A Bad Time Of It.

An Expansive Life, One Not Constrained By Four Walls, Requires As Well An Expansive Pocket.

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

Man Will Become Better When You Show Him What He Is Like.

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.

Nothing Better Forges A Bond Of Love, Friendship Or Respect Than Common Hatred Toward Something.

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.

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

If You Wish Women To Love You Be Original; I Know A Man Who Used To Wear Felt Boots Summer And Winter & Women Fell In Love With Him.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Pharisaism, Obtuseness And Tyranny Reign Not Only In The Homes Of Merchants And In Jails; I See It In Science, In Literature, And Among Youth. I Consider Any Emblem Or Label A Prejudice.... My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body, Health, Intellect, Talent, Inspiration, Love And The Most Absolute Of Freedoms, The Freedom From Force And Falsity In Whatever Forms They Might Appear.

You Look Boldly Ahead; Isn't It Only That You Don't See Or Divine Anything Terrible In The Future; Because Life Is Still Hidden From Your Young Eyes.

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'm In Mourning For My Life.

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

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.

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

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

If You Fear Loneliness, Then Don't Get Married.

Everyone Has The Same God; Only People Differ.

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.

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...

My Holy Of Holies Is The Human Body.

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

Better A Debauched Canary Than A Pious Wolf.

It Is Easy To Be A Philosopher In Academia, But It Is Very Difficult To Be A Philosopher In Life.

Narrative Prose Is A Legal Wife, While Drama Is A Posturing, Boisterous, Cheeky And Wearisome Mistress.

It Is As Acceptable Now To Love The Wives Of Others As It Is To Smoke Their Cigars And Read Their Books.

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

I Feel More Confident And More Satisfied When I Reflect That I Have Two Professions And Not One. Medicine Is My Lawful Wife And Literature Is My Mistress. When I Get Tired Of One I Spend The Night With The Other. Though It's Disorderly It's Not So Dull, And Besides, Neither Really Loses Anything, Through My Infidelity.

What Must Human Beings Be, To Destroy What They Can Never Create?

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.

Death Is Terrifying, But It Would Be Even More Terrifying To Find Out That You Are Going To Live Forever And Never Die.

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

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.

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.

Medicine Is My Lawful Wife And Literature My Mistress; When I Get Tired Of One, I Spend The Night With The Other.

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.

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

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Isolation In Creative Work Is An Onerous Thing. Better To Have Negative Criticism Than Nothing At All.

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.

Everything On Earth Is Beautiful, Everything -- Except What We Ourselves Think And Do When We Forget The Higher Purposes Of Life And Our Own Human Dignity.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

In Descriptions Of Nature One Must Seize On Small Details, Grouping Them So That When The Reader Closes His Eyes He Gets A Picture.

The Problem Is That We Attempt To Solve The Simplest Questions Cleverly, Thereby Rendering Them Unusually Complex. One Should Seekthe Simple Solution.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

If There's A Gun On The Wall In Act One, Scene One, You Must Fire The Gun By Act Three, Scene Two. If You Fire A Gun In Act Three, Scene Two, You Must See The Gun On The Wall In Act One, Scene One.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

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

Man Is What He Believes.

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.

Don't Tell Me The Moon Is Shining; Show Me The Glint Of Light On Broken Glass.

It's Been A Long Time Since I've Had Champagne.

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

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.

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John Paul DeJoria

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