Having translated two plays by Chekhov, and not speaking Russian myself - I cannot say one sentence. This may shock people... However, I am not shocked, as it is not hard to find out what the words mean.

The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions between individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's essentially self-interested on the part of authority.

Uncertainty is the normal state.

I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.

Well, we'll know better next time.

Writing a play is like smashing that [glass] ashtray, filming it in slow motion, and then running the film in reverse, so that the fragments of rubble appear to fly together. You start - or at least I start - with the rubble.

You think human nature is a beast, that it must be put in a cage. But it's the cage that makes the animal bad.