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The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
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
Asks
Artist
Art
Questions
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Answer
Roles
Answers
More quotes by Anton Chekhov
In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to portray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she.
Anton Chekhov
Death can only be profitable: there's no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
Anton Chekhov
Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.
Anton Chekhov
To believe in God is not hard. Inquisitors, Byron and Arakcheev believed in Him. No, believe in man!
Anton Chekhov
Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.
Anton Chekhov
The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren't aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.
Anton Chekhov
Let the things that happen on the stage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up.
Anton Chekhov
A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.
Anton Chekhov
It is a bad thing if a writer tackles a subject he does not understand.
Anton Chekhov
The bourgeoisie is very fond of so-called practical types and novels with happy endings, since they soothe it with the idea that one can both accumulate capital and preserve innocence, be a beast and at the same time be happy...
Anton Chekhov
I can't accept our nervous age, since mankind has been nervous during every age. Whoever fears nervousness should turn into a sturgeon or smelt if a sturgeon makes a stupid mistake, it can only be one: to end up on a hook, and then in a pan in a pastry shell.
Anton Chekhov
I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual progress, not a monk. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more.
Anton Chekhov
..when one has no real life, one lives by mirages. It's still better than nothing.
Anton Chekhov
Man will become better when you show him what he is like.
Anton Chekhov
To Moscow, to Moscow, to Moscow!
Anton Chekhov
There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
Anton Chekhov
Writers are as jealous as pigeons.
Anton Chekhov
For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.
Anton Chekhov
Nothing lulls and inebriates like money when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.
Anton Chekhov
Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.
Anton Chekhov