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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.

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
Lying
Story
Experience
Ends
Authors
Stories
Cross
Writing
Crosses
Beginning
Written

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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is the writer's business not to accuse and not to prosecute, but to champion the guilty, once they are condemned and suffer punishment.
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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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From here, far away, people seem very good, and that is natural, for in going away into the country we are not hiding from people but from our vanity, which in town among people is unjust and active beyond measure.
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You look boldly ahead isn't it only that you don't see or divine anything terrible in the future because life is still hidden from your young eyes.
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Flies purify the air, and plays - the morals.
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In descriptions of nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture.
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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.
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I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.
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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.
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In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.
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Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.
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Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.
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It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
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People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
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It's easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.
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You confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for an artist.
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