Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business.

A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.

It's even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.

Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?

In Russia there is no philosophy, but philosophize everything, even the small fry.

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.

There isn't a Monday that would not cede its place to Tuesday.