"Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck."
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Anton Chekhov quotes (page 13 of 22)
433 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write."
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"I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry. ... No, no!"
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"Everything I have written up to now is trifling compared to that which I would like to write and would write with great pleasureEither I am a fool and a self-conceited person, or I am a being capable of becoming a good writer; I am displeased and bored with everything now being written, while everything in my head interests, moves, and excites me-whence I draw the conclusion that no one is doing what is needed, and I alone know the secret of how it should be done. In all likelihood everyone who writes thinks that. In fact, the devil himself will be brought to his knees by these questions."
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"If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one."
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"I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity."
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"But if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: "My work is literature.""
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"We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things used to be so much better, life today is worse than it used to be."
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"If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last."
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"A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer."
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"A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer. . . . He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors."
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"It's easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook."
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"A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat."
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"It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life."
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"Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse."
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"When men ask me how I know so much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I learned from me."
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"It's even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday."
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"I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles."
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"When a man fails to understand something he is conscious of a discord, and seeks for the cause of it not in himself, as he should, but outside himself - hence the war with what he does not understand."
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"Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable."
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