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A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.

Anton Chekhov

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Anton Chekhov
Age: 44 †
Born: 1860
Born: January 1
Died: 1904
Died: January 1
Author
Dramaturge
Journalist
Novelist
Physician
Playwright
Prosaist
Satirist
Writer
Tahanroh
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Antón Pávlovič Čéhov
Antón Pávlovich Chékhov
Chekhov
Writer
Cosmetic
Cosmetics
Entertainer
Dealer
Entertainers

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.
Anton Chekhov
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Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.
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Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons: there will be great misunderstandings and deep disappointments… you must be prepared for all this, expect it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way.
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Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.
Anton Chekhov
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People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.
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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.
Anton Chekhov
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In all my life I never met anyone so frivolous as you two, so crazy and unbusinesslike. I tell you in plain Russian your property is going to be sold and you don't seem to understand what I say.
Anton Chekhov
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The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
Anton Chekhov
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Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that each case be individualized. If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.
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Life is given only once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full conscious and beauty.
Anton Chekhov
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I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.
Anton Chekhov
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Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.
Anton Chekhov
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A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.
Anton Chekhov
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Moscow is a city that has much suffering ahead of it.
Anton Chekhov
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A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.
Anton Chekhov
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People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
Anton Chekhov
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The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.
Anton Chekhov
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Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.
Anton Chekhov
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Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.
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Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.
Anton Chekhov