When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader feel pity, try to be somewhat colder - that seems to give a kind of background to another's grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold. ... The more objective you are, the stronger will be the impression you make.

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

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

People's destinies are so different. Some people drag along, unnoticed and boring—they're all alike, and they're all unhappy. Then there are others, like for instance you—you're one in a million. You're happy—

When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean-that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses-that is science.

I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.

The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.