Heart of a Dog

by Mikhail Bulgakov

'By 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.

People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, terror's useless, whatever its colour - white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.

'What do you mean by ruin? An old woman with a broomstick? A witch who smashes all the windows and puts out all the lights? No such thing. What do you mean by that word?' Philip Philipovich angrily enquired of an unfortunate cardboard duck hanging upside down by the sideboard, then answered the question himself. 'I'll tell you what it is: if instead of operating every evening I were to start a glee club in my apartment, that would mean that I was on the road to ruin. If when I go to the lavatory I don't pee, if you'll excuse the expression, into the bowl but on to the floor instead and if Zina and Darya Petrovna were to do the same thing, the lavatory would be ruined. Ruin, therefore, is not caused by lavatories but it's something that starts in people's heads. So when these clowns start shouting "Stop the ruin!" - I laugh!'

You can't sweep the dirt out of the tram tracks and settle the fate of the Spanish beggars at the same time!

Anyhow, what is freedom? Vapour, mirage, fiction . . . democratic rubbish . .

transplantation of the pituitary induces not rejuvenation but total humanisation (underlined three times).

This, doctor, is what happens when a researcher, instead of keeping in step with nature, tries to force the pace and lift the veil. Result - Sharikov.

The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation!'

'Science has not yet found the means of turning animals into people. I tried, but unsuccessfully, as you can see. He talked and then he began to revert back to his primitive state. Atavism.'