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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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It Is Uncomfortable To

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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More From Anton Chekhov

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

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

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.

We Go To Great Pains To Alter Life For The Happiness Of Our Descendants And Our Descendants Will Say As Usual: Things Used To Be So Much Better, Life Today Is Worse Than It Used To Be.

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

An Artist Observes, Selects, Guesses, And Synthesizes.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

The More Refined One Is, The More Unhappy.

In My Opinion It Is Harmful To Place Important Things In The Hands Of Philanthropy, Which In Russia Is Marked By A Chance Character. Nor Should Important Matters Depend On Leftovers, Which Are Never There. I Would Prefer That The Government Treasury Take Care Of It.

Never Bring A Cannon On Stage In Act I Unless You Intend To Fire It By The Last Act.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Better A Debauched Canary Than A Pious Wolf.

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.

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

Money, Like Vodka, Turns A Person Into An Eccentric.

By Poeticizing Love, We Imagine In Those We Love Virtues That They Often Do Not Possess; This Then Becomes The Source Of Constant Mistakes And Constant Distress.

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

Ivanov: Once I Worked Hard And Thought A Lot But I Never Got Tired; Now I Do Nothing And Think Of Nothing, But I'm Tired In Body And Spirit. My Conscience Aches Day And Night, I Feel Deeply Guilty But I Don't Understand Where I Am Actually At Fault. And Add To That My Wife's Illness, My Lack Of Money, The Constant Bickering, Gossip, Unnecessary Conversations, That Stupid Borkin... My Home Has Become Loathsome To Me And I Find Living There Worse Than Torture.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

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

Man Has Been Endowed With Reason, With The Power To Create, So That He Can Add To What He's Been Given. But Up To Now He Hasn't Been A Creator, Only A Destroyer. Forests Keep Disappearing, Rivers Dry Up, Wild Life's Become Extinct, The Climate's Ruined And The Land Grows Poorer And Uglier Every Day.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

"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."

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

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.

The Air Of One's Native Country Is The Most Healthy Air.

A Hungry Dog Believes In Nothing But Meat.

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.

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?

Oh, Dreams! In One Night, Lying With One's Eyes Shut, One May Sometimes Live Through More Than Ten Years Of Happiness.

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

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.

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

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.

It's Better To Live Down A Scandal Than To Ruin One's Life.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

My Mother And Father Are The Only People On The Whole Planet For Whom I Will Never Begrudge A Thing. Should I Achieve Great Things, It Is The Work Of Their Hands; They Are Splendid People And Their Absolute Love Of Their Children Places Them Above The Highest Praise. It Cloaks All Of Their Shortcomings, Shortcomings That May Have Resulted From A Difficult Life.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

A Naive Man Is Nothing Better Than A Fool. But You Women Contrive To Be Naive In Such A Way That In You It Seems Sweet, And Gentle, And Proper, And Not As Silly As It Really Is.

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

Love Is A Scandal Of The Personal Sort.

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

Revolting Means For Good Ends Make The Ends Of Themselves Revolting.

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

We Shall Find Peace. We Shall Hear Angels, We Shall See The Sky Sparkling With Diamonds.

Losing A Loved One

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

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.

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

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

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.

I've Noticed That People Who Get Married Cease To Be Curious.

I've Been Reading Reviews Of My Stories For Twenty-five Years, And Can't Remember A Single Useful Point In Any Of Them, Or The Slightest Good Advice. The Only Reviewer Who Ever Made An Impression On Me Was Skabichevsky, Who Prophesied That I Would Die Drunk In The Bottom Of A Ditch.

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.

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

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

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.

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

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

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

We Live Not In Order To Eat, But In Order Not To Know What We Feel Like Eating.

I'm In Mourning For My Life.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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.

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

Man Has Been Endowed With Reason, With The Power To Create, So That He Can Add To What He's Been Given.

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.

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 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 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.

Useless Pursuits And Conversations Always About The Same Things Absorb The Better Part Of One's Time, The Better Part Of One's Strength, And In The End There Is Left A Life Grovelling And Curtailed, Worthless And Trivial, And There Is No Escaping Or Getting Away From It—just As Though One Were In A Madhouse Or Prison.

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

Indeed, In Russia There Is A Terrible Poverty Of Facts, And A Terrible Abundance Of Reflections Of All Sorts.

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.

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.'

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.

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

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.

I Should Like To Meet A Philosopher Like Nietzsche Somewhere In A Train Or A Steamer, And To Spend The Whole Night Talking To Him. I Consider His Philosophy Won't Last Long, However. It's More Showy Than Convincing.

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

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!

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.

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

The Personal Life Of Every Individual Is Based On Secrecy, And Perhaps It Is Partly For That Reason That Civilized Man Is So Nervously Anxious That Personal Privacy Should Be Respected.

Idea For A Short Story. The Shore Of A Lake, A Young Girl Who's Spent Her Whole Life Beside It, A Girl Like You She Loves The Lake The Way A Seagull Does, And She's Happy And Free As A Seagull. Then A Man Comes Along, Sees Her, And Ruins Her Life Because He Has Nothing Better To Do. Destroys Her Like This Seagull Here.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

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

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

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

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

And I Despise Your Books, I Despise Wisdom And The Blessings Of This World. It Is All Worthless, Fleeting, Illusory, And Deceptive, Like A Mirage. You May Be Proud, Wise, And Fine, But Death Will Wipe You Off The Face Of The Earth As Though You Were No More Than Mice Burrowing Under The Floor, And Your Posterity, Your History, Your Immortal Geniuses Will Burn Or Freeze Together With The Earthly Globe.

Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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.

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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.

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.

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.

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

If You Ever Have Need Of My Life, Come And Take It.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Eyes - The Head's Chief Of Police. They Watch And Make Mental Notes.

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.

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