Quotes

by Anton Chekhov

I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.—letter, 1888

My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, not matter what form the latter two take.—letter, 1888

Anyone who says that the artist's field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealing with imagery. An artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes.—letter, 1888

People should be beautiful in every way—in their faces, in the way they dress, in their thoughts and in their innermost selves.—Uncle Vanya, act I

To begin to live in the present, we must first atone for our past and be finished with it, and we can only atone for it by suffering, by extraordinary, unceasing exertion.—The Cherry Orchard, act II

Brevity is the sister of talent.—letter, 1889

For 25 years I have read criticisms of my stories and I don't remember a single remark of any value or one word of valuable advice. Only once [a critic] said something which made an impression on me - he said I would die in a ditch, drunk.—quoted in "A Chekhov lexicon" by William Boyd in the Guardian Unlimited at: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1252154,00.html

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.—quoted in "A Chekhov lexicon" by William Boyd in the Guardian Unlimited at: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1252154,00.html

about Anton Chekhov

Chekhov is essentially a humorist. His is not the quiet, genial humor of an Addison or a Washington Irving nor the more subtle, often boisterous humor of a Mark Twain. His is rather the cynical chuckle of a grown-up watching a child assume grimaces of deep earnestness and self-importance. —Bryllion Fagin, "Anton Chekhov: The Master of the Gray Short-Story," Poet Lore, XXXII, Autumn 1921

He developed the short story as a form of literary art to one of its highest peaks, and the translation of his stories into English has constituted one of the greatest single literary influences at work in the short story of America, England, and Ireland. This influence has been one of the factors encouraging the short-story writers of these nations to revolt against the conventional plot story and seek in simple and realistic terms to make of the story a form that more seriously reflects life. — James T Farrell, The League of Frightened Philistines and Other Papers (Vanguard, 1952)

Sources for Quotations

I use various sources for quotations on this site. Below are the most common sources I use. I also draw from my own collection of quotes and from primary sources.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition. John Bartlett, Justin Kaplan, editors. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1992.

BrainyQuote. <http://www.brainyquote.com/>

The Dictionary of Biographical Quotation. Richard Kenin and Justin Wintle, editors. Dorset Press, New York, 1978

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, fourth edition. Angela Partington, editor. Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1992

Peter's Quotations by Laurence J. Peter. Bantam Books, New York, 1980

The Quotations Page. <http://www.quotationspage.com/>