There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
Ivan TurgenevHowever much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
Ivan TurgenevThere's something tragic in the fate of almost every person--it's just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.
Ivan TurgenevAs for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better--but you keep working anyway.
Ivan Turgenev