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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.

-Anton Chekhov

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Time Will Pass, And

Anton Chekhov

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

Write Only Of What Is Important And Eternal.

Flies Purify The Air, And Plays - The Morals.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The University Brings Out All Abilities, Including Incapability.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

The Sea Has Neither Meaning Nor Pity.

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.

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

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

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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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.

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.

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

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

The Secret Of Boring People Lies In Telling Them Everything.

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

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First Impression

I Swear Fearfully At The Conventions Of The Stage.

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I Observed That After Marriage People Cease To Be Curious.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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Capital Punishment

Writers Are As Jealous As Pigeons.

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Even In Siberia There Is Happiness.

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

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

Losing A Loved One

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

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—

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

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

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

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.

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

I 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.

Brevity - The Sister Of Talent.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Nothing Can Be Accomplished By Logic And Ethics.

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

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

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

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.

If You Are Afraid Of Loneliness, Do Not Marry.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[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.

To Moscow, To Moscow, To Moscow!

Advertising Is The Very Essence Of Democracy.

Transcendentalism

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

You Must Trust And Believe In People Or Life Becomes Impossible.

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.

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

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

Everyone Has The Same God; Only People Differ.

The World Is, Of Course, Nothing But Our Conception Of It.

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

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

In 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.

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

A Man Wants Nothing So Badly As A Gooseberry Farm.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

...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.

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

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

I Divide All Literary Works Into Two Categories: Those I Like And Those I Don't Like. No Other Criterion Exists For Me.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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Ernest Shackleton

George S. Patton

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