Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.

Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!

Remember that you must never sell your soul. Never accept payment in advance.... Never give a work to the printer before it is finished. This is the worst thing you can do.... It constitutes the murder of your own ideas.

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

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.

How does it come about that what an intelligent man expresses is much stupider than what remains inside him?