In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she.

People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.

The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.

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

In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you'll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.

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

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.