I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they m… - Anton Chekhov

At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?"

Children are holy and pure. Even those of bandits and crocodiles belong among the angels.... They must not be turned into a plaything of one’s mood, first to be tenderly kissed, then rabidly stomped at.

Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.