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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
Going
Shouldn
Rifle
Absolutely
Rifles
Wall
Fired
Second
Chapter
Firsts
Chapters
First
Hanging
Must
Third
Writing
Thirds

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Brevity - the sister of talent.
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Art, especially the stage, is an area where it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are in store for you many unsuccessful days and whole unsuccessful seasons: there will be great misunderstandings and deep disappointments… you must be prepared for all this, expect it and nevertheless, stubbornly, fanatically follow your own way.
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The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.
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Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck.
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The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.
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Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
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The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings.
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Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies.
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Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far asblather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.
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Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.
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If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
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The snow has not yet left the earth but spring is already asking to enter your heart.
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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 observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.
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I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.
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I'm in mourning for my life.
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You will not become a saint through other people's sins.
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I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.
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When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'
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Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.
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