Anna Petrovna (to Shabelsky): You can't make a simple joke without an injection of venom. You are a poisonous man. Joking apart, Count, you're very poisonous. It's hideously boring to live with you. You're always grumpy, complaining, you find everyone bad, good for nothing. Tell me frankly, Count, did you ever speak well of anyone?

Our pride and self-importance are European, while our development and actions are Asiatic.

A writer should not so much write as embroider on paper; the work should be painstaking, laborious.

When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams.

What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.

And what does it mean -- dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.

Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.