I never have frustrations. The reason is to wit: Of at first I don't succeed, I quit!

Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.

if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!

A widow, the mother of a family, and from her heart she produces chords to which my whole being responds.

Such power!" Adelaida cried all at once, peering greedily at the portrait over her sister's shoulder. "Where? What power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked sharply. "Such beauty has power," Adelaida said hotly. "You can overturn the world with such beauty.

The Russian soul is a dark place.

One must love life before loving its meaning ... yes, and when the love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.