Mikhail Bulgakov (1891 – 1940)
Russian-language novelist and playwright of the first half of the 20th century.
Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.
'Never ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They'll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves.'
'What is all this? Damn me if I don't have you thrown out of here!' The beast just smiled and said: 'Damn you, I think you said? Very well!'
It's all over, so let's not burden the telegraph system.
It was clear to him that he had lost something irretrievably that day, and that now he wanted to make up for the loss with minor, inconsequential, and most importantly, belated measures.
The hope that she might regain her happiness made her fearless.
Ryukhin showed himself no mercy-'I don't believe in anything I've ever written!'
The procurator studied the new arrival with avid, and slightly fearful eyes. It was the kind of look one gives someone one has heard of and thought a lot about, and whom one is meeting for the first time.
The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You're asked an unexpected question, you don't even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.
. . . said the not entirely suppressed old Ivan, rearing his head from inside the new one, although without much confidence.
'What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and happy friends?'
Only if some microorganism doesn't attack these tender hothouse plants and eat away at their roots, only if they don't rot! And that can happen with pineapples! Oh, yes, indeed it can!
There was something uncommonly fake and uncertain in every line of these articles, depite their threatening and self-assured tone. I kept thinking . . . that the authors of these articles weren't saying what they wanted to say, and that that was why they were so furious.
'Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked . . .'
They have read your novel . . . and they said only one thing, that, unfortunately, it is not finished. So I wanted to show you your hero. He has been sitting here for about two thousand years, sleeping, but, when the moon is full, he is tormented, as you see, by insomnia. And it torments not only him, but his faithful guardian, the dog. If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it. The only thing that brave creature ever feared was thunderstorms. But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one who is loved.
'Don't be afraid, Queen ... don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long since gone into the earth. And where it was spilled, grapevines are already growing.'
Cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices - thus spoke Yeshua Ha-Nozri. 'No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!'
'I had the pleasure of meeting that young man at the Patriarch's Ponds. He almost drove me mad myself, proving to me that I don't exist. But you do believe that it is really I?'