Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villainy. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves.

Ill-considered but well-intentioned actions do more good that actions that are well-considered but cruel.

Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart." "So what's vodka for?" "For the soul. If it's hurting real bad

Experience is primarily the ability to restrain our fleeting impulses.

When there are strange things going on all around, every coincidence should be considered very carefully.

There are far more reasons for death than there are for life.

A writer who wants to be translated and published abroad faces a very difficult challenge: first of all, he must make sure that his book is cosmopolitan in the best sense of the word, that it is interesting to a global audience. Nobody is going to read about problems that they don’t care about.