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

By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.

Not only after two or three centuries, but in a million years, life will still be as it was; life does not change, it remains for ever, following its own laws which do not concern us, or which, at any rate, you will never find out. Migrant birds, cranes for example, fly and fly, and whatever thoughts, high or low, enter their heads, they will still fly and not know why or where. They fly and will continue to fly, whatever philosophers come to life among them; they may philosophize as much as they like, only they will fly....

I feel as if I had been in the world a thousand years, and I trail my life behind me like an endless scarf.