Quote

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.

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
Hung
Otherwise
Following
Wall
Firsts
Pistol
First
Pistols
Writing
Fired

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Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let's have a philosophical conversation.
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Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.
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This life of ours...human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up---no more flower.
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Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.
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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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Lying is the same as alcoholism. Liars prevaricate even on their deathbeds.
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One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they'll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.
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If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It's better to live somehow than not at all.
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I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
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Once a man gets a fixed idea, there's nothing to be done.
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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.
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I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book.... One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.
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Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.
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It's even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.
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Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs.
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I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.
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A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.
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And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.
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To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man.
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