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If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging 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
Second
Chapter
Firsts
Chapters
First
Hanging
Must
Third
Writing
Thirds
Going
Shouldn
Rifle
Absolutely
Rifles
Wall
Fired

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I should think I'm going to be a perpetual student.
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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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Even while lying, you'll be believed if you speak with authority.
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In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because--I don't know why.
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A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.
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Only one who loves can remember so well.
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If many remedies are prescribed for an illness you can be sure it has no cure
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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.
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Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave's blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being--not a slave's--coursing through his veins.
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The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.
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The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
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The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.
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Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable.
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The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.
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I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don't like. No other criterion exists for me.
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I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.
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A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.
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The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
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Women writers should write a lot if they want to write. Take the English women, for example. What amazing workers.
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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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