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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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The Leaves Did Not

Anton Chekhov

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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.

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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.

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

Only Entropy Comes Easy.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Perhaps The Feelings That We Experience When We Are In Love Represent A Normal State. Being In Love Shows A Person Who He Should Be.

Self Improvement

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

Dear, Sweet, Unforgettable Childhood!

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

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.

Solomon Made A Big Mistake When He Asked For Wisdom.

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

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

[six Principles That Make For A Good Story:] 1. Absence Of Lengthy Verbiage Of A Political-social-economic Nature; 2. Total Objectivity; 3. Truthful Descriptions Of Persons And Objects; 4. Extreme Brevity; 5. Audacity And Originality: Flee The Stereotype; 6. Compassion.

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

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

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

All Saints Have Past And All Sinners Have A Future.

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.

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.

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.

Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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

And 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.

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

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!

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.

Our Pride And Self-importance Are European, While Our Development And Actions Are Asiatic.

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

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—

To Harbor Spiteful Feelings Against Ordinary People For Not Being Heroes Is Possible Only For Narrow-minded Or Embittered Man.

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.

Calculating Selfishness Is The Annihilation Of Self.

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

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.

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

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

One Must Speak About Serious Things Seriously.

It Is Not Only The Prisoners Who Grow Coarse And Hardened From Corporal Punishment, But Those As Well Who Perpetrate The Act Or Are Present To Witness It.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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

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

I'm In Mourning For My Life.

If In The First Act You Introduce A Gun, By The Third Act You Have To Use It.

Please, Understand That Your Life Is Bad And Dreary!

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

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.

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

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 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

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

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

Only One Who Loves Can Remember So Well.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Neither I Nor Anyone Else Knows What A Standard Is. We All Recognize A Dishonorable Act, But Have No Idea What Honor Is.

Life Has Gone By As If I Never Lived

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.

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.

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.

What A Delight It Is To Respect People!

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

Great Jove Angry Is No Longer Jove.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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

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

All The Great Sages Are As Despotic As Generals, And As Ignorant And As Indelicate As Generals, Because They Feel Secure Of Impunity.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

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

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

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.

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

Man Is What He Believes.

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

I Was So Drunk The Whole Time That I Took Bottles For Girls And Girls For Bottles.

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.

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

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.

The More Elevated A Culture, The Richer Its Language. The Number Of Words And Their Combinations Depends Directly On A Sum Of Conceptions And Ideas; Without The Latter There Can Be No Understandings, No Definitions, And, As A Result, No Reason To Enrich A Language.

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

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

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.

Hypocrisy Is A Revolting, Psychopathic State.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.'

There Are Still Many More Days Of Failure Ahead, Whole Seasons Of Failure, Things Will Go Terribly Wrong, You Will Have Huge Disappointments , But You Have To Prepare For That, You Have To Expect It And Be Resolute And Follow Your Own Path.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

It Always Seems To The Brothers And The Father That Their Brother Or Son Didn't Marry The Right Person.

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.

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?

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

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

In Displaying The Psychology Of Your Characters, Minute Particulars Are Essential. God Save Us From Vague Generalizations!

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

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?

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

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

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

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

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.

In Descriptions Of Nature One Must Seize On Small Details, Grouping Them So That When The Reader Closes His Eyes He Gets A Picture. For Instance, You'll Have A Moonlit Night If You Write That On The Mill Dam A Piece Of Glass From A Broken Bottle Glittered Like A Bright Little Star, And That The Black Shadow Of A Dog Or A Wolf Rolled Past Like A Ball.

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

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.

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!

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