The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.

Even in Siberia there is happiness.

You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.

Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far asblather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.

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

I have no will of my own. Never did. Limp and lily-livered, I always obey - is it possible that's attractive to women?

Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.