Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth29 January 1860
CityTaganrog, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.
There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.
They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.
Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.
People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.
Write, write, write-till your fingers break.
There is nothing new in art except talent.
Formerly, when I would feel a desire to understand someone, or myself, I would take into consideration not actions, in which everything is relative, but wishes. Tell me what you want and I'll tell you who you are.
What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me.
Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.
I am writing a play which I probably will not finish until the end of November. I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of the lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love.
Everything I have written up to now is trifling compared to that which I would like to write and would write with great pleasureEither I am a fool and a self-conceited person, or I am a being capable of becoming a good writer; I am displeased and bored with everything now being written, while everything in my head interests, moves, and excites me-whence I draw the conclusion that no one is doing what is needed, and I alone know the secret of how it should be done. In all likelihood everyone who writes thinks that. In fact, the devil himself will be brought to his knees by these questions.
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.