If you happen to have a wart on your nose or forehead, you cannot help imagining that no one in the world has anything else to do but stare at your wart, laugh at it, and condemn you for it, even though you have discovered America.

It is easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.

Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.

What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.

Man is a pliable animal, a being who gets accustomed to everything!

As for me, this is my story: I worked and was tortured. You know what it means to compose? No, thank God, you do not! I believe you have never written to order, by the yard, and have never experienced that hellish torture.

I sometimes think love consists precisely of the voluntary gift by the loved object of the right to tyrannize over it.