The intelligentsia ...was kept busy embroidering white stitches on the philosophical and ecclesiastical vestments of the bourgeoisie - that old and filthy fabric besmeared with the blood of toiling masses.

Everything which is good in me should be credited to books.

Hunger can explain many acts. It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger.

All of us are pilgrims on this earth. I've even heard people say that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.

If it is true that only misfortune can awaken a man's soul, it is a bitter truth, one that is hard to hear and accept, and it is only natural that many people deny it and say it is better for a man to live on in a trance than to wake up to torture.

We kill everybody, my dear. Some with bullets, some with words, and everybody with our deeds. We drive people into their graves, and neither see it nor feel it.

With his own money a person can live as he likes-a ruble that's your own is dearer than a brother.