Quote

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Anton Chekhov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Answer
Roles
Answers
Asks
Artist
Art
Questions
Role

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

Image
There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.
Anton Chekhov
Image
There isn't a Monday that would not cede its place to Tuesday.
Anton Chekhov
Image
To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people's consciousness, the people's conscience, freedom andso forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen--this is the same as lying to the holy spirit.
Anton Chekhov
Image
A fiancé is neither this nor that: he's left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
Anton Chekhov
Image
It always seems to the brothers and the father that their brother or son didn't marry the right person.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.
Anton Chekhov
Image
A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
It's worth living abroad to study up on genteel and delicate manners. The maid smiles continuously she smiles like a duchess on a stage, while at the same time it is clear from her face that she is exhausted from overwork.
Anton Chekhov
Image
There is nothing new in art except talent.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
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.
Anton Chekhov
Image
To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
Anton Chekhov
Image
No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I am writing a play which I probably will not finish until the end of November. I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of the lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You look at any poetic creature: muslin, ether, demigoddess, millions of delights then you look into the soul and find the most ordinary crocodile!
Anton Chekhov
Image
In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
Anton Chekhov