Eyes - the head's chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.

And it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but God preserve you from touching the Liberals! Heaven forbid!

Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!

I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a ditch.

Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.