Chekhov Quotes

• If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the peg just a little from where they were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we'll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, "created of warm blood and nerves" as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, Heart, Character

  Raymond Carver (2016). “Where I'm Calling From”, p.14, Random House

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• Chekhov was as important to me as anybody as a writer.

  Al Pacino

  Important

  Lawrence Grobel, Al Pacino (2008). “Al Pacino”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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• I did Chekhov's Three Sisters once. Two months in, I remember going, "Human beings shouldn't be forced to do or watch this play every night." It's so dark and so bottomless.

  Justin Theroux

  Dark, Night, Play

  Source: www.elle.com

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• Human lives seldom conform to the conventions of fiction. Chekhov says that it is in the beginnings and endings of stories that we are most tempted to lie. I know what he means, and I agree.

  Wallace Stegner

  Lying, Mean, Fiction

  Wallace Stegner (2007). “Crossing to Safety”, p.163, Modern Library

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• I did [Henrik] Ibsen and [Anton] Chekhov for years. Obviously I didn't get the kind of recognition I have now. Somebody once told me, "You ride the horse the direction it's going."

  Joe Manganiello

  Horse, Years, Recognition

  Source: www.elle.com

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• One of the things that made me want to be an actor more than ever was seeing a Chekhov play, "The Sea Gull," when was 14 in the Bronx.

  Al Pacino

  Sea, Play, Actors

  Lawrence Grobel, Al Pacino (2008). “Al Pacino”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people like the Chekhov story The Lady With the Little Dog.

  Claire Messud

  Dog, People, Abiding

  "Midlife and Fantasy at 42 — Claire Messud’s New Novel Resonates". Interview with Heidi Legg, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 2, 2013.

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• It's very important to set your place in a concrete environment. I think Chekhov said that the important thing when you have a play or any kind of novel is to set the roots in a concrete place.

  Roman Polanski

  Thinking, Play, Roots

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• I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him.

  Tobias Wolff

  Love, Goes On

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• I suppose I have become a sort of living monument in Portugal. But I come from a family with roots all over the world, so the idea of patriotism is not very strong in me. My country is the country of Chekhov, Beethoven, Velasquez - writers I like, painters and artists I admire.

  Antonio Lobo Antunes

  Country, Strong, Artist

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• In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Anton Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

  Bernadette Peters

  Gay, Careers, Challenges

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• You have to teach yourself to act but Michael Chekhov will give you the necessary tools - and for me, Psychological Gesture and Centers are extremely valuable They work like a charm. I've used them all along and still do.

  Clint Eastwood

  Giving, Tools, Gestures

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• There are no whys in a person's life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite patience. Solomon and Lincoln: This too shall pass. Damn right it will. Or Chekhov: Nothing passes. Equally true.

  Chad Harbach

  Kindness, Infinite, This Too Shall Pass

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• "Do you know," Ivan Bunin recalls Anton Chekhov saying to him in 1899, near the end of his too-short life, "for how many years I shall be read? Seven." "Why seven?" Bunin asked. "Well," Chekhov answered, "seven and a half then."

  Anton Chekhov

  Life, Years, Half

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• I'm into parlor dramas. I'm into theatre. I'm trained for the stage. I trained to do Chekhov and Shakespeare, I was trained for the stage.

  Tom Hardy

  Drama, Theatre, Stage

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• I don't think my looks are modern. I always imagined I'd end up doing Chekhov, Ibsen and Shakespeare all my life and never play a contemporary character.

  Alex Kingston

  Character, Thinking, Play

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• I love playing Chekhov. That's the hardest; that's why I love it most.

  Uta Hagen

  Theatre, Hardest

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• Having translated two plays by Chekhov, and not speaking Russian myself - I cannot say one sentence. This may shock people... However, I am not shocked, as it is not hard to find out what the words mean.

  Tom Stoppard

  Mean, Play, Two

  Source: news.postimees.ee

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• Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me.

  Eudora Welty

  Reading, Angel, Singing

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• Without Leskov there would be no Bulgakov, no Chekhov, but also no Garca Mrquez and Julio Cortzar. . . . Leskov is the essential storyteller: he does not portray life, he creates it in all its wonder and terror and magic.

  Alberto Manguel

  Magic, Essentials, Doe

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• I really like the stuff that is very absurd and very real at the same time. I think Anton Chekhov is the greatest comedy writer of all time. I think he would make a great addition to The Office staff. If you look through Chekhov plays there is a lot of awkward pauses in there. His mixture of pathos, absurdity, truthfulness and whimsy is just mixed together perfectly.

  Rainn Wilson

  Real, Thinking, Play

  Interview with David Hirschman, bigthink.com. November 11, 2010.

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• I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.

  Gary Shteyngart

  Self Esteem, Men, Feelings

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• My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.

  Gene Wilder

  Thinking, Play, Stories

  "Wilder Asks, 'What Is This Thing Called Love?'". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. March 30, 2010.

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• While my stories are experimental, they're also very traditional. I love the works of the great Russian writers like [Pavel] Chekhov and [Lev] Tolstoy, and their ability to portray our human struggles and joys.

  Alexander Weinstein

  Struggle, Joy, Stories

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• Psychoanalysis showed me that I might be neurotic because I was a girl but, as Chekhov might have put it, I alone had to squeeze the slave out of myself, drop by drop.

  Vivian Gornick

  Girl, Might, Slave

  "We knew we were not liberated and were never going to be liberated. But we knew what liberation was". The Believer Interview, believermag.com. March 2014.

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