Oh, no, the dog howled mentally. Excuse me, but I won't, I won't let you. Now I understand it, to hell with them and their sausage. They've tricked me into a dog hospital.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov Heart of a Dog

I am a handsome devil. Am I perhaps an unknown canine prince -- incognito, the dog wondered gazing at the shaggy coffee-colored dog with a well pleased muzzle wandering about in the depths of the mirrors. It is very possible that my grandmother sinned with a Newfoundland.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov Heart of a Dog

Then the autumn rains came and my shoulder and left knee started aching, yet worst of it all was the fact that my novel was no good....
Every night I lay staring into hellish darkness and repeating: "It's terrible."
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov Black Snow

Stealing things is easy. Putting them back again is much harder.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov Black Snow

Love leaped out at us like a murderer jumping out of a dark alley.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov

Soon the room had that desolate look that comes from the chaos of packing up to go away and, worse, from removing the shade from the lamp. Never, never take the shade off a lamp. A lampshade is something sacred. Scuttle away like a rat from danger and into the unknown. Read or doze beside your lampshade; let the storm howl outside and wait until they come for you.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov The White Guard

Perhaps money stops people from being nice. Nobody here has any money, for example, and they're all nice.
~~~Mikhail Bulgakov The White Guard

Everything should take place slowly and incorrectly so that a man doesn't get a chance to start feeling proud, so that a man is sad and perplexed.
~~~Venedikt Erofeev Moscow to the End of the Line

Minute by minute I am getting happier, and if I start to get foul-mouthed, it's only because I'm happy.
~~~Venedikt Erofeev Moscow to the End of the Line

This girl is more than a girl. She's a temptress, she's a ballad in A flat major.
~~~Venedikt Erofeev Moscow to the End of the Line

For isn't the life of man a momentary booziness of the soul? And an eclipse of the soul as well? We are all as if drunk, only everybody in hisown way; one person has drunk more, the next less. And it works differently on each: the one laughs in the face of this world, while the next cries on its bosom. One has alrady thrown up and feels better, while the next is only starting to feel like throwing up. But me, what am I? I've partaken of much, but nothing works on me. I haven't really laughed properly, even once, and I've never thrown up, even once.
~~~Venedikt Erofeev Moscow to the End of the Line

Actually she was at least in her late twenties (I never established her exact age for even her passport lied) and had mislaid her virginity under circumstances that changed with her reminiscent moods.
~~~Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

This I confess under torture. Imaginary torture, perhaps, but all the more horrible.
~~~Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

Being a murderer with a sensational but incomplete and unorthodox memory, I cannot tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the exact day which I first knew with certainty that the red convertible was following us.
~~~Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'aimais, je t'aimais.
~~~Vladimir Nabokov Lolita

The church is near but the road is all ice; the tavern is far but I'll walk very carefully.
~~~Russian Proverb

A woman is an evil no household should be without.
~~~Russian Proverb

Life is unbearable, but death is not so pleasant either.
~~~Russian Proverb

Ah, you can even get used to Hell.
~~~Russian Proverb

Light a candle for the devil, too: you never know.
~~~Russian Proverb

There is no good answer to a stupid question.
~~~Russian Proverb

Pray to God and don't offend the Devil.
~~~Russian Proverb

It is unpleasant to go anywhere alone, even to be drowned.
~~~Russian Proverb

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
~~~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi Anna Karenina

The strongest of all warriors are these two--Time and Patience.
~~~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi War and Peace

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
~~~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi War and Peace

On the one hand, friends, to die is splendid, but on the other hand -- merci, I'd rather not. I'll manage somehow without your touching expressions of gratitude.
~~~Mikhail Zoschenko Nervous People and other stories

I went to a bathhouse last Saturday (after all, I can't go to America for a bath). They handed me two checks. One for my underwear, the other for my coat and hat.
But where is a naked man to put those checks? Honestly, there's no place for them. You have no pockets. All you have is a belly and legs.
~~~Mikhail Zoschenko Nervous People and other stories

It's harder to answer stupid questions than intelligent ones.
~~~Mikhail Zoschenko Before Sunrise

Even for a highly sensitive mind, inclined to fantasize, sufferings and psychoneuroses are by no means obligatory.
~~~Mikhail Zoschenko Before Sunrise

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