Quote

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

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
Writing
Crosses
Beginning
Written
Lying
Story
Experience
Ends
Authors
Stories
Cross

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

Image
A woman is fascinated not by art but by the noise made by those in the field.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Once a man gets a fixed idea, there's nothing to be done.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Eyes - the head's chief of police. They watch and make mental notes.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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.
Anton Chekhov
Image
There are people whom even children's literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.
Anton Chekhov
Image
All the great sages are as despotic as generals, and as ignorant and as indelicate as generals, because they feel secure of impunity.
Anton Chekhov
Image
There are in life conjunctions of circumstances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires is least of all appropriate.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.
Anton Chekhov
Image
In descriptions of nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture.
Anton Chekhov
Image
You will not become a saint through other people's sins.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? Before God or, perhaps, before the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not before people. Among people, one must be conscious of one's dignity.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view - I change it every month - and so I'll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.
Anton Chekhov
Image
We live not in order to eat, but in order not to know what we feel like eating.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.
Anton Chekhov