Chekhov will seek out the key situation in the life of a cabman or a charwoman, and make them glow for a brief moment in the tender light of his sympathy.
Robert Wilson LyndNo man is uninteresting when his hat is blown off and he has to scuttle after it down the street.
Robert Wilson LyndThe mirror that Strindberg held up to Nature was a cracked one. It was cracked in a double sense -- it was crazy. It gave back broken images of a world which it made look like the chaos of a lunatic dream.
Robert Wilson LyndIt is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.
Robert Wilson LyndWhen one has praised Turgenev, however, for the beauty of his character and the beautiful truth of his art, one remembers that he, too, was human and therefore less than perfect. His chief failing was, perhaps, that of all the great artists, he was the most lacking in exuberance. That is why he began to be scorned in a world which rated exuberance higher than beauty or love or pity.
Robert Wilson Lynd