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?

Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.

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...

It is as acceptable now to love the wives of others as it is to smoke their cigars and read their books.

A woman is fascinated not by art but by the noise made by those in the field.

In Russia there is no philosophy, but philosophize everything, even the small fry.

If you look at anything long enough, say just that wall in front of you - it will come out of that wall.