If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it.

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.

Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture.

No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair, from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.

Flies purify the air, and plays - the morals.

When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.

Life has gone by as if I never lived