To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow! - Anton Chekhov

The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappiness does not unite people, but separates them...

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.

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.