The Plays of Anton Chekhov Quotes

“NINA [sighing]: No. I’ve only one pea in my hand. I asked my fortune – should I become an actress or not? I wish someone would give me some advice. TRIGORIN: One can’t give advice about that.”
― Anton Chekhov, Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters

“YELENA ANDREYEVNA: It’s not a question of trees, or medicine… You see, my dear, it’s talent! And do you know what talent means? Courage, a free mind, a broad sweep… He plants a little tree and he can foretell what will come of it in a thousand years, he’s already dreaming of the happiness of mankind. Such men are rare, to be loved… He drinks, he’s often a bit coarse – but what harm in that? A man with talent in Russia can’t be nice and clean. Think yourself what kind of life this doctor has! Impassable mud on the roads, frosts, snow-storms, huge distances, crude and primitive people, everywhere poverty, disease, and in these circumstances it’s hard for someone struggling and fighting from day to day to get to forty and remain nice and sober…”
― Anton Chekhov, Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters

“MARIYA VASILYEVNA: For some reason you find it unpleasant to listen when I talk. I’m sorry, Jean,6 but in the last year you’ve changed so that I just don’t know you. You were a man of definite convictions, a man of enlightenment… VOYNITSKY: Oh yes! I was a man of enlightenment, who gave no one any light…”
― Anton Chekhov, Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters

“ANDREY: Oh where is it now, where has my past gone, the time when I was young, merry, clever, when I had fine thoughts, fine dreams, when my present and my future were lit up by hope? Why is it that no sooner have we begun to live, we become boring, grey, uninteresting, lazy, indifferent, useless, unhappy… Our town has existed now for two hundred years, it has a hundred thousand inhabitants – and not one of them who isn’t exactly like the others, not one hero, not one scholar, not one artist, not one who stands out in the slightest bit, who might inspire envy or a passionate desire to emulate him. They just eat, drink, sleep, then they die… others are born and they too eat, drink, sleep, and in order not to be dulled by boredom, they diversify their life with vile gossip, vodka, cards, law suits, and the wives deceive their husbands and the husbands lie, pretend they see nothing and hear nothing, and an irremediably coarse influence weighs down on the children, and the spark of God’s spirit dies in them and they become the same kind of pitiful corpses, one like another, as their mothers and fathers…”
― Anton Chekhov, Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters

“VERSHININ: Yes… But I think whether you’re talking about civilians or soldiers, they’re equally uninteresting, at any rate in this town. No difference! If you listen to an educated man in this town, civilian or soldier, he’s got problems with his wife, problems with his house, he’s got problems with his estate, problems with his horses… It’s very typical of the Russian to have elevated thoughts, but tell me why he aims so low in life? Why?”
― Anton Chekhov, Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters