“Isn’t ‘not to be bored’ one of the principal goals of life?”

“What an awful thing life is, isn’t it? It’s like soup with lots of hairs floating on the surface. You have to eat it nevertheless.”

“The world is going to become bloody stupid and from now on will be a very boring place. We’re lucky to be living now.”

“Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.”

“One event sometimes had infinite ramifications and could change the whole settings of a person's life.”

“Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn’t that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire?”

“He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.”