Quote

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

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

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

Image
I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.
Anton Chekhov
Image
What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Flies purify the air, and plays - the morals.
Anton Chekhov
Image
It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Tsars and slaves, the intelligent and the obtuse, publicans and pharisees all have an identical legal and moral right to honor the memory of the deceased as they see fit, without regard for anyone else's opinion and without the fear of hindering one another.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Death can only be profitable: there's no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it's tobacco, then let it be tobacco.
Anton Chekhov
Image
A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Women can't forgive failure.
Anton Chekhov
Image
People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Life is a vexatious trap when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.
Anton Chekhov
Image
Great Jove angry is no longer Jove.
Anton Chekhov
Image
In order to cultivate yourself and to drop no lower than the level of the milieu in which you have landed, it is not enough to read Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust... You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will... Each hour is precious.
Anton Chekhov
Image
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
Image
You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.
Anton Chekhov
Image
The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.
Anton Chekhov
Image
I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.
Anton Chekhov