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
The stupider the peasant, the better the horse understands him.
Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil. The horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a double-bass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes. And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.'
I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.
You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.
Liubov Andreevna: Are you still a student? Trofimov: I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days.
If only we could go back to Moscow! Sell the house, finish with our life here, and go back to Moscow.
Only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.
Medvienko: Why do you always wear black? Masha: I am in mourning for my life. I am unhappy.
The only difference between doctors and lawyers is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you, too.
Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.
It's a long time since I drank champagne.
Never bring a cannon on stage in Act I unless you intend to fire it by the last act.
When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.
He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom.