To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

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;...

I’ve never been in love. I’ve dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.

His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another.

On dit que les philosophes et les vrais sages sont indifférents. C’est faux, l’indifférence est une paralysie de l’ me, une mort anticipée.

Existence is tedious, anyway.

And what does it mean — dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.

We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It’s so clear, you see, that if we’re to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done...

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...

Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.”(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)

The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different languages but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from being able...

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...

When a woman is plain, people say, ‘What beautiful eyes you have, beautiful hair.

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,...

[W]hen people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand… Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.

There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.”(The Mill)

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!”(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)

With total rapture and delight he talks about the birds which he can see from his prison window, and which he had never noticed before, when he was a minister. Now of course, after he’s...

Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God,...

And you know that anyone who at least once in his life has caught a perch or seen blackbirds migrating in the fall, when they rush in flocks over the village on clear, cool days,...

In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not to think of the past, was brooding...

…a writer should not so much write as embroider on paper; the work should be painstaking, laborious.

Wisdom…. comes not from age, but from education and learning.

Once a man gets a fixed idea, there’s nothing to be done.

The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.

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...

Anna Petrovna: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have...

Science and art,… they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, [and] the soul, and when they are harnessed to passing needs and activities,… then they only complicate and encumber life.

Ah yes, freedom! Even a hint of it, just the faintest hope of it, is enough to make one’s spirit soar, don’t you think?

As a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects the indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or unhappy; that is why dumbness is most often the highest...

Nu-i nimic, mi-e mai uşor pe suflet dacă pl ng…

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...

Anna Petrovna: Kolya, my dearest, stay at home.Ivanov: My love, my unhappy darling, I beg you, don’t stop me going out in the evenings. It’s cruel and unjust on my part, but let me commit...

Ivanov: A naive man is a fool. But you women are clever enough to be naive so that it comes out in you as engaging and healthy and warm, and not so silly as it...

If Makar Denisych was just a clerk or a junior manager, then no one would have dared talk to him in such a condescending, casual tone, but he is a ‘writer’, and a talentless mediocrity!People...

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...

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...

If only you would go to the university,” he said. “Only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it’s only they who are wanted. The more of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of...

Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it’s been sworn in! … Let’s think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks?

Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly...

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

Anna Petrovna: Do you know what, Kolya? Try and sing, laugh, get angry, as you once did… You stay in, we’ll laugh and drink fruit liqueur and we’ll drive away your depression in a flash....

These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left...

For God’s sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.

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,...

The sufferings which may be observed nowadays – they are so widespread and so vast – but people speak nevertheless about a certain moral improvement which society has achieved…

Ivanov: And this whole romance of ours is commonplace and trite: he lost heart, and he lost his way. She came along, strong and brave in spirit, and gave him an helping hand. That’s all...