Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.

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.

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.

We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who treat female illnesses are womanizers and cynics at heart. Gynecologists deal with savage prose the likes of which you have never dreamed of.

Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture.

It's better to live down a scandal than to ruin one's life.