I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.

Belonging to oneself--the whole essence of life lies in that.

I'm through with Tolstoy. He has ceased to exist for me.... If I eat a bowl of soup and like it, I know by that fact alone and with absolute certainty that Tolstoy will find it bad, and vice versa.

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

To tell about a drunken muzhik's beating his wife is incomparably harder than to compose a whole tract about the 'woman question.'

Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.

Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.