Dale Sabo > Dale's Quotes

“Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev. Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.
'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.
'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“manuscripts don't burn" - "(рукописи не горят)”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Is that vodka?" Margarita asked weakly.
The cat jumped up in his seat with indignation.
"I beg pardon, my queen," he rasped, "Would I ever allow myself to offer vodka to a lady? This is pure alcohol!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Punch a man on the nose, kick an old man downstairs, shoot somebody or any old thing like that, that’s my job. But argue with women in love—no thank you!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things on earth?
– Man governs it himself, – Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly none-too-clear question.
– Pardon me, – the stranger responded gently, – but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period, well, say, a thousand years , but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? And in fact, – here the stranger turned to Berlioz, – imagine that you, for instance, start governing, giving orders to others and yourself, generally, so to speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get ...hem ... hem ... lung cancer ... – here the foreigner smiled sweetly, and if the thought of lung cancer gave him pleasure — yes, cancer — narrowing his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word —and so your governing is over! You are no longer interested in anyone’s fate but your own. Your family starts lying to you. Feeling that something is wrong, you rush to learned doctors, then to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers as well. Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless, as you understand. And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought he was governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box, and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good for anything, burn him in an oven. And sometimes it’s worse still: the man has just decided to go to Kislovodsk – here the foreigner squinted at Berlioz – a trifling matter, it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knows why, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he who governed himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he was governed by someone else entirely?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“You are not Dostoevsky,' said the woman...
'You never can tell...' he answered.
'Dostoevsky is dead,' the woman said, a bit uncertainly.
'I protest!' he said with heat, 'Dostoevsky is immortal!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“And now tell me, why is it that you use me words "good people" all the time? Do you call everyone that, or what?
- Everyone, - the prisoner replied. - There are no evil people in the world.

(- А теперь скажи мне, что это ты все время употребляешь слова добрые
люди"? Ты всех, что ли, так называешь?
- Всех, - ответил арестант, - злых людей нет на свете.)”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination. Kindly note my silhouette in the moonlight." The cat climbed into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to keep talking but was asked to be quiet. "Very well, I shall be silent," he replied, "I shall be a silent hallucination.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Why try to pursue what is completed?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked...”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“and a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Margarita was never short of money. She could buy whatever she liked. Her husband had plenty of interesting friends. Margarita never had to cook. Margarita knew nothing of the horrors of living in a shared flat. In short... was she happy? Not for a moment.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“The most amazing combinations can result if you shuffle the pack enough.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Not causing trouble, not touching anything, fixing the primus.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“I wouldn’t like to meet you when you’ve got a revolver,” said Margarita with a coquettish look at Azazello. She had a passion for people who did things well.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Manuscripts do not burn.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“I shall sit down,' replied the cat, sitting down, 'but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.'

Your king is in check,' said Woland.

Very well, very well,' responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses.

And so, donna,' Woland addressed Margarita, 'I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth...”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“No one's fate is of any interest to you except your own.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“I challenge you to a duel!” screamed the cat, sailing over their heads on the swinging chandelier.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Not fooling around, not bothering nobody, just sitting here mending the Primus," said the cat with a hostile frown, "and, moreover, I consider it my duty to warn you that the cat is an ancient, inviolable animal.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita