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

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

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

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.

Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.

If our life has a meaning, an aim, it has nothing to do with our personal happiness, but something wiser and greater.

Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.