Mikhail Bulgakov
Literature has become my life.
Once in 1919, when I was traveling at night by train, I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story.
My writing is progressing slowly, but at least it's moving forward. I'm sure that's the case. The only problem is that I'm never absolutely certain that what I've written is any good.
There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.Collection: Loss
Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.Collection: World
What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?Collection: Evil
You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.Collection: Powerful
The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes—never!Collection: Eye
Everything passes away-suffering,pain, blood, hunger,pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the Earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes toward the stars? Why?Collection: Stars
Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.Collection: Vices
But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.Collection: Stupid
"We speak different languages, as usual," responded Woland, "but this does not change the things we speak about. Well?..."Collection: Usual
But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the who is loved.Collection: Fate
Kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You'll get nowhere with an animal if you use terror, no matter what its level of development may be. That I have maintained, do maintain and always will maintain. People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour – white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.Collection: Kindness
Is that vodka?" Margarita asked weakly. The cat jumped up in his seat with indignation. "I beg pardon, my queen," he rasped, "Would I ever allow myself to offer vodka to a lady? This is pure alcohol!Collection: Queens
Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!Collection: Men
I suppose that in no educational institution can one become an educated person.Collection: Educational
In order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can't even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years, and is, moreover, unable to ensure his own safety for even the next day?Collection: Men
he was coming to understand he could not come to rectify anything in his life, only forget.Collection: Forget
Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!Collection: Liars
No one's fate is of any interest to you except your own.Collection: Fate
and a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.Collection: Stubborn
Punch a man on the nose, kick an old man downstairs, shoot somebody or any old thing like that, that’s my job. But argue with women in love—no thank you!Collection: Jobs
Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.Collection: Stopping
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.Collection: Giving
The most amazing combinations can result if you shuffle the pack enough.Collection: Most Amazing
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.Collection: Children
Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination. Kindly note my silhouette in the moonlight." The cat climbed into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to keep talking but was asked to be quiet. "Very well, I shall be silent," he replied, "I shall be a silent hallucination.Collection: Cat
Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.Collection: Wine
For some reason, cats are usually addressed familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk bruderschaft with anyone.Collection: Cat
just like a murderer jumps of nowhere in an ally, love jumped out in front of us and struck us both at onceCollection: Allies
Why try to pursue what is completed?Collection: Trying
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.Collection: Eye
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant.Collection: Speak
There's only one degree of freshness — the first, which makes it also the lastCollection: Degrees
You are not Dostoevsky,' said the woman... 'You never can tell...' he answered. 'Dostoevsky is dead,' the woman said, a bit uncertainly. 'I protest!' he said with heat, 'Dostoevsky is immortal!Collection: Heat
Remove the document—and you remove the man.Collection: Men
the hope that there she would manage to regain her happiness made her fearlessCollection: Fearless
You pronounced your words as if you don’t acknowledge the shadows, or the evil either. Would you be so kind as to give a little thought to the question of what your good would be doing if evil did not exist, and how the earth would look if the shadows were to disappear from it?Collection: Evil
Manuscripts don't burn.Collection: Manuscripts
How sad, ye Gods, how sad the world is at evening, how mysterious the mists over the swamps! You will know it when you have wandered astray in those mists, when you have suffered greatly before dying, when you have walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. You know it two when you are weary and ready to leave this earth without regret; its mists; its swamps and its rivers; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.Collection: Regret
Not causing trouble, not touching anything, fixing the primus.Collection: Touching
But worse things were about to be found in the bedroom: on the jeweller’s wife’s ottoman, in a casual pose, sprawled a third party- namely, a black cat of uncanny size, with a glass of vodka in one paw and a fork, on which he had managed to spear a pickled mushroom, in the other. , The Master and MagaritaCollection: Party
If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it.Collection: Dog
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.Collection: Queens
Allow me to inquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow?Collection: Men
To struggle against censorship, whatever its nature, and whatever the power under which it exists, is my duty as a writer, as are calls for freedom of the press. I am a passionate supporter of that freedom, and I consider that if any writer were to imagine that he could prove he didn't need that freedom, then he would be like a fish affirming in public that it didn't need water.Collection: Struggle
Obedient to constraint, I was compelled to submitCollection: Submit
Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. As lightning strikes, as a Finnish knife strikes! She, by the way, insisted afterwards that it wasn't so, that we had, of course, loved each other for a long, long time, without knowing each other, never having seen each other.Collection: Knives
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.Collection: Eye