Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

When they sang in church, “Now is the beginning of our salvation,” he ate glavizna at home; on the day of St. John the Baptist he ate no food that was circular and flogged his children.

[Footnote 1: Glavizna in Russian is the name of a fish and also means beginning; the root of the verbs “to behead” and “to flog” are the same.]

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A journalist wrote lies in the newspaper, but he thought he was writing the truth.

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If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.

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He himself is rich, but his mother is in the workhouse.

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He married, furnished a house, bought a writing-table, got everything in order, but found he had nothing to write.

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Faust: “What you don’t know is just what you want; what you know is what you can’t use.”

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Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority.

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As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone.

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A German: “Lord have mercy on us, grieshniki.”

[Footnote 1: Grieshniki

means “sinners,” but sounds like grietchnieviki which means “buckwheat cakes.”]

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“O my dear little pimple!” said the bride tenderly. The bridegroom thought for a while, then felt hurt — they parted.

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They were mineral water bottles with preserved cherries in them.

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An actress who spoilt all her parts by very bad acting — and this continued all her life long until she died. Nobody liked her; she ruined all the best parts; and yet she went on acting until she was seventy.

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He alone is all right and can repent who feels himself to be wrong.

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The archdeacon curses the “doubters,” and they stand in the choir and sing anathema to themselves (Skitalez).

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He imagined that his wife lay with her legs cut off and that he nursed her in order to save his soul….

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Madame Snuffley.

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The black-beetles have left the house; the house will be burnt down.

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“Dmitri, the Pretender, and Actors.” “Turgenev and the Tigers.”

Articles like that can be and are written.

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A title: Lemon Peel.

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I am your legitimate husband.

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An abortion, because while birthing a wave struck her, a wave of the ocean; because of the eruption of Vesuvius.

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It seems to me: the sea and myself — and nothing else.

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Education: his three-year-old son wore a black frock-coat, boots, and waistcoat.

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With pride: “I’m not of Yuriev, but of Dorpat University.”

[Footnote 1: Yuriev is the Russian name of the town Dorpat.]

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His beard looked like the tail of a fish.

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A Jew, Ziptchik.

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A girl, when she giggles, makes noises as if she were putting her head in cold water.

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“Mamma, what is a thunderbolt made of?”

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On the estate there is a bad smell, and bad taste; the trees are planted anyhow, stupidly; and away in a remote corner the lodge-keeper’s wife all day long washes the guest’s linen — and nobody sees her; and the owners are allowed to talk away whole days about their rights and their nobility.

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She fed her dog on the best caviare.

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Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic.

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A black dog — he looks as if he were wearing goloshes.

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A Russian’s only hope — to win two hundred thousand roubles in a lottery.

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She is wicked, but she taught her children good.

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Every one has something to hide.

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The title of N.’s story: The Power of Harmonies.

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O how nice it would be if bachelors or widowers were appointed

Governors.

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A Moscow actress never in her life saw a turkey-hen.

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On the lips of the old I hear either stupidity or malice.

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“Mamma, Pete did not say his prayers.” Pete is woken up, he says his prayers, cries, then lies down and shakes his fist at the child who made the complaint.

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He imagined that only doctors could say whether it is male or female.

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One became a priest, the other a Dukhobor, the third a philosopher, and in each case instinctively because no one wants really to work with bent back from morning to night.

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A passion for the word uterine: my uterine brother, my uterine wife, my uterine brother-in-law, etc.

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To Doctor N., an illegitimate child, who has never lived with his father and knew him very little, his bosom friend Z., says with agitation: “You see, the fact of the matter is that your father misses you very much, he is ill and wants to have a look at you.” The father keeps “Switzerland,” furnished apartments. He takes the fried fish out of the dish with his hands and only afterwards uses a fork. The vodka smells rank. N. went, looked about him, had dinner — his only feeling that that fat peasant, with the grizzled beard, should sell such filth. But once, when passing the house at midnight, he looked in at the window: his father was sitting with bent back reading a book. He recognized himself and his own manners.

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As stupid as a gray gelding.