Антон Павлович Чехов: Цитаты на английском языке (страница 4)

“I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.”

“People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives.”

“Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.”

“I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book…. One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.”

“If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It’s better to live somehow than not at all.”

“Dear, sweet, unforgettable childhood! Why does this irrevocable time, forever departed, seem brighter, more festive and richer than it actually was?”

“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.”

“Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.”

“Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher’s stone.”

“You ask “What is life?” That is the same as asking “What is a carrot?” A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.”

“I don’t know why one can’t chase two rabbits at the same time, even in the literal sense of those words. If you have the hounds, go ahead and pursue.”

“One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they’ll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.”

“The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.”

“I’m in mourning for my life.”

“By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.”

“Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.”

“If only one tooth aches, rejoice that not all of them ache…. If your wife betrays you, be glad that she betrayed only you and not the nation.”

“Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.”

“I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.”