Quote

Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don't know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hardand tortuous to write a bad one.

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
Judging
Everyone
Easy
Write
Tortuous
Play
Judges
Hard
Twice
Writing
Plays
Good
Criticism

More quotes by Anton Chekhov

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The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.
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I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage.
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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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It is as acceptable now to love the wives of others as it is to smoke their cigars and read their books.
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Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given.
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Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
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I let myself go at the beginning and write with an easy mind, but by the time I get to the middle I begin to grow timid and to fear my story will be too long. . .That is why the beginning of my stories is always very promising and looks as though I were starting on a novel, and the middle is huddled and timid, and the end is...like fireworks.
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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.
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To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.
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I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles.
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People's destinies are so different. Some people drag along, unnoticed and boring—they're all alike, and they're all unhappy. Then there are others, like for instance you—you're one in a million. You're happy—
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The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.
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[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature 2. total objectivity 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects 4. extreme brevity 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype 6. compassion.
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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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If many remedies are prescribed for an illness you can be sure it has no cure
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Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.
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He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.
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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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In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
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All saints have past and all sinners have a future.
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