“But the editor in chief was already balding and worked a lot. He was at the mercy of his family and apartment. He enjoyed lying down on the couch for a spell after dinner and reading Pravda before bed.”

“He was only thirty-eight. His body was clean, well-fed, and benign. He had all his teeth. A fresh Armenian joke stirred in his head like a child in its mother's womb. He thought life was wonderful.”

“So what was in this building before historical materialism?''Before what?''You know, back then, under the old regime?''Oh. Under the old regime my master lived here.''A bourgeois?''You're a bourgeois yourself! He wasn't a bourgeois. He was a marshal of the nobility.''So he was a proletarian, then?''You're a proletarian yourself! I told you loud and clear, a marshal.'The conversation with the clever dvornik with a vague understanding of the class structure of society would have lasted god knows how long if the young man hadn't made a decisive move.”

“Most importantly, we have our assets: an émigré who has returned to his native town. And we have our liabilities: he is afraid the GPU will take him away.”

“Ostap Bender lay in the dvornik's room, which was warm to the point of reeking, and mentally put the finishing touches on two possible career plans.He could become a polygamist and move peacefully from town to town, dragging behind him a new suitcase full of valuable items he'd picked up from the latest wife. Or he could go the very next day to the Stargorod Children's Commission and offer them the chance to distribute the as-yet unpainted but brilliantly conceived canvas The Bolsheviks Writing a Letter to Chamberlain, based on the artist Repin's popular painting The Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan. If it worked out, this option could bring in something along the line of four hundred rubles. Ostap had thought up both options during his last stay in Moscow. The polygamy option had been born under the influence of the court report from the evening papers, where it was clearly indicated that some polygamist had only gotten two years without strict isolation. Option number two had taken shape in Bender's mind when he was going through the AARR exhibit on a free ticket.However, both options had their downsides. It was impossible to begin a career as a polygamist without a wondrous, dapple-gray suit. In addition, he needed at least ten rubles for hospitality expenses and seduction. Of course, he could get married in his green campaign uniform as well, because Bender's masculine power and attraction were absolutely irresistible to provincial, marriage-ready Margaritas; but that would be, as Bender liked to say, "Poor-quality goods. Not clean work." It wasn't all smooth sailing for the painting, either. Purely technical difficulties could arise. Would it be proper to paint Comrade Kalinin in a papakha and a white burka, or Comrade Chicherin naked to the waist?”

“The way people used to kiss before the age of historical materialism.”

“Americans don't like to waste time on stupid things, for example, on the torturous process of coming up with names for their towns. And really, why strain yourself when so many wonderful names already exist in the world?The entrance to the town of Moscow is shown in the photograph. That's right, an absolutely authentic Moscow, just in the state of Ohio, not in the USSR in Moscow province.There's another Moscow in some other state, and yet another Moscow in a third state. On the whole, every state has the absolute right to have its very own Moscow.”