“Perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster” (Thoughts from Anton Chekhov’s Note-Books)

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A scholar, without talent, a blockhead, worked for twenty-four years and produced nothing good, gave the world only scholars as untalented and as narrow-minded as himself. At night he secretly bound books—that was his true vocation: in that he was an artist and felt the joy of it. There came to him a bookbinder, who loved learning and studied secretly at night.

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But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster.

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Keep to the right, you of the yellow eye!

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Do you want to eat? No, on the contrary.

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A pregnant woman with short arms and a long neck, like a kangaroo.

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How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works.

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To demand that the woman one loves should be pure is egotistical: to look for that in a woman which I have not got myself is not love, but worship, since one ought to love one’s equals.

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The so-called pure childlike joy of life is animal joy.

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—From Anton Chekhov’s Note-Books.