[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.

There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.

A fiancé is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.

Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.

Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.

When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader feel pity, try to be somewhat colder - that seems to give a kind of background to another's grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold. ... The more objective you are, the stronger will be the impression you make.

The teacher must be an actor, an artist,passionately in love with his work.