Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!

The bourgeoisie is very fond of so-called practical types and novels with happy endings, since they soothe it with the idea that one can both accumulate capital and preserve innocence, be a beast and at the same time be happy...

We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.

In Moscow you sit in a huge room at a restaurant; you know no one and no one knows you, and at the same time you don't feel a stranger. But here you know everyone and everyone knows you, and yet you are a stranger - a stranger... A stranger, and lonely...

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

There are still many more days of failure ahead, whole seasons of failure, things will go terribly wrong, you will have huge disappointments , but you have to prepare for that, you have to expect it and be resolute and follow your own path.

Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.