“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.”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“Fifteen of his clubs, dedicated to politics, music, and the performing arts, had all been developing strategic plans for the past two years. And the local branches of various societies--whose goals were to advance aviation, knowledge of chemistry, automotive transportation, equestrian sports, highway construction, as well as the prompt eradication of ethnic chauvinism--existed only in the sick imagination of the local union committee. As for the school of continuing education, of which Sardinevich was especially proud, it was constantly reorganizing itself, which, as anybody knows, means it wasn't undertaking any useful activity whatsoever. If Sardinevich were an honest man, he would probably have admitted that all these activities were essentially a mirage. But the local union committee used this mirage to concoct its reports, so at the next level up nobody doubted the existence of all those musico-political clubs. At that level, the school of continuing education was imagined as a large stone building filled with desks, where perky teachers draw graphs that show the rise of unemployment in the United States on their chalkboards, while mustachioed students develop political consciousness right in front of your eyes.”

“It wouldn't have been surprising if the girl suddenly stamped her foot and began: "Comrades! Allow me to summarize the achievements which . . . ," and so forth, because we have exemplary children who can make two-hour speeches with forlorn diligence. But the Young Pioneer from Roaring Springs took the bull by the horns with her little hands and belted out, in a funny, high-pitched voice: "Long live the Five-Year Plan!”

“If you should attempt to maintain that film is an art in conversation with a cultured, intelligent American, he'll just plain stop talking to you.”