Mikhail Bulgakov Quotes

The hope that she might regain her happiness made her fearless.

Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked . . .

Follow me reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!

We have no idea whether there were any other strange occurences in Moscow that night, and we have no intention of trying to find out, since the time has come for us to proceed to Part Two of this true narrative. Follow me, reader!

`Second freshness - that's what is nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first - and it is also the last. And if sturgeon is of the second freshness, that means it is simply rotten.'

What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and happy friends?

What is all this? Damn me if I don't have you thrown out of here!' The beast just smiled and said: 'Damn you, I think you said? Very well!

The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You're asked an unexpected question, you don't even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.

There was something uncommonly fake and uncertain in every line of these articles, depite their threatening and self-assured tone. I kept thinking . . . that the authors of these articles weren't saying what they wanted to say, and that that was why they were so furious.

[S]aid the not entirely suppressed old Ivan, rearing his head from inside the new one, although without much confidence.

‘He's clever,' thought Ivan,' I must admit there are some smart people even among the intelligentsia'

Foreign visitors . . . how impressed you all are with foreign visitors! But they come in many different varieties.

Ryukhin showed himself no mercy-'I don't believe in anything I've ever written!'

Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.

It's all over, so let's not burden the telegraph system.