An artist must know the reality he is depicting in its minutest detail. In my opinion we have only one shining example of that - Count Leo Tolstoy.

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.

...one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.

Of course my jokes are in poor taste, inappropriate, and confused; they reveal my lack of security. But that is because I have no respect for myself.

It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was.

There is nothing more alluring to man than freedom of conscience, but neither is there anything more agonizing.

Love life more than the meaning of it?