I have no faith in our hypocritical, false, hysterical, uneducated and lazy intelligentsia when they suffer and complain: their oppression comes from within. I believe in individual people. I see salvation in discrete individuals, intellectuals and peasants, strewn hither and yon throughout Russia. They have the strength, although there are few of them.

The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

My holy of holies is the human body.

You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.

One must speak about serious things seriously.

In descriptions of nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture.