Anton Chekhov Quotes

I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles.

Скажи, пожалюста, душя моя, когда я буду жить по-человечески, т. е. работать и не нуждаться? Теперь я и работаю, и нуждаюсь, и порчу свою репутацию необходимостью работать херовое.

Tell me, pleez, my sawl, when will I live in human way, that is, to work and not to be in need? Now I work, and I'm in need, and I spoil my reputation by the need to write bullshit.

Oh, what women are here!

Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience.

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.

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.

Hoping for the critics' indulgence, the author asks to send money for his story immediately, otherwise his wife and kids will die of hunger.

Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.

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.

A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings.

Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? In front of God or, perhaps, in front of the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not in front of people. Among people, one must be conscious of one’s dignity.

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.

There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday.