All The Great Sages Are As Despotic

This Man, Who For Twenty-five Years Has Been Reading And Writing About Art, And In All That Time Has Never Understood Anything About Art, Has For Twenty-five Years Been Hashing Over Other People's Ideas About Realism, Naturalism And All That Nonsense; For Twenty-five Years He Has Been Reading And Writing About What Intelligent People Already Know And About What Stupid People Don't Want To Know--which Means That For Twenty-five Years He's Been Taking Nothing And Making Nothing Out Of It. And With It All, What Conceit! What Pretension!

Sometimes We Go To A Play And After The Curtain Has Been Up Five Minutes We Have A Sense Of Being Able To Settle Back In The Arms Of The Playwright. Instinctively We Know That The Playwright Knows His Business.

It Is As Acceptable Now To Love The Wives Of Others As It Is To Smoke Their Cigars And Read Their Books.

Dear And Most Respected Bookcase! I Welcome Your Existence, Which Has For Over One Hundred Years Been Devoted To The Radiant Ideals Of Goodness And Justice.

You Don't Understand, You Fool' Says Yegor, Looking Dreamily Up At The Sky. 'you've Never Understood What Kind Of Person I Am, Nor Will You In A Million Years... You Just Think I'm A Mad Person Who Has Thrown His Life Away... Once The Free Spirit Has Taken Hold Of A Man, There's No Way Of Getting It Out Of Him.