“Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.”

“To live simply to die is by no means amusing, but to live with the knowledge that you will die before your time, that's really is idiotic”

“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”

“Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave's blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being--not a slave's--coursing through his veins.”

“Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can.”

“Lvov: I need to have a candid talk with you, Nikolay Alekseyevich.Ivanov: Doctor, if we're going to have a candid talk every day, I haven't the strength for it.”

“Levedev: It's no great thing to drink - a horse too can drink... No, one must drink intelligently... in our time we used to struggle with lectures all day, but as soon as evening came we went straight off somewhere where the lights were shining and spun like tops til dawn... ... We would talk nonsense and philosophy till our tongues went numb... But today's lot... I don't understand... They wouldn't make God a candle or the Devil a poker.”