If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.

Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher's stone.

When men ask me how I know so much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I learned from me.

When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write that a gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or wolf appeared. You will bring life to nature only if you don't shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind.

When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.

You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.

I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.