“Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.”

What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

When asked, “Why do you always wear black?”, he said, “I am mourning for my life.

Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.

Not one of our mortal gauges is suitable for evaluating non-existence, for making judgments about that which is not a person.

You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.

The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can’t return even if it wants to.

Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read – my own or other people’s works – it all seems to me not short enough.

The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.

He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.

I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because–I don’t know why.

It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.

There are things money can’t buy and hard work can’t win. One of them is happiness.

The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it.

Today there seems to be only one absolute thing: relativism.

Whatever one man is capable of imagining, other men will prove themselves capable of realizing.

What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one.

Man is never perfect nor contented.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

One of my trophies of ‘Drag Race’ is getting to meet Katya.