From IVANHOV

- "You're a clever man: think. According to you, nothing could be simpler than to understand me! Yes? . . . . Man is such a simple, uncomplicated machine! No, Doctor; in every one of us there are far too many wheels, screws, and valves for us to be able to judge one another by first impressions, or by two or three external signs. I don't understand you, you don't understand me, and we don't understand ourselves. It is possible to be an excellent doctor - and at the same time to know absolutely nothing about people. Don't be so sure of yourself, admit that I am right."

From THE SEAGULL

- “How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life!”

From THE THREE SISTERS

- "Oh, I'm miserable. . . . I can't work, I'm not going to work. I've had enough of it, enough of it! . . . . I've been working for a long time, and my brain is drying up, I'm getting thin and old and ugly and there's nothing, nothing, not the slightest satisfaction, and time is passing and you feel that you are moving away from a real, a beautiful life, moving farther and farther away and being drawn into some sort of abyss. I'm in despair, and why I am alive, why I haven't killed myself before now, I don't know...."

- "[H]umanity is passionately seeking something . . . . If, don't you know, we could add culture to the love of work, and love of work to culture..."