Julia > Julia's Quotes

“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“...what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“,,Jak nauczyło mnie doświadczenie, obraz, jaki zakochany tworzy sobie o przedmiocie swojej miłości, nie zawsze zgodny bywa z prawdą”
― Charles Dickens , Great Expectations

“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“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

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

“manuscripts don't burn" - "(рукописи не горят)”
― 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

“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

“The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You're asked an unexpected question, you don't even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.”
― 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

“Just like a murderer jumps out of nowhere in an alley, love jumped out in front of us and struck us both at once”
― 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

“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

“I don't have any special talents, just an ordinary desire to live like a human being.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“This twenty-year-old boy was distinguished from childhood by strange qualities, a dreamer and an eccentric. A girl fell in love with him, and he went and sold her to a brothel...”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“In order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can't even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years, and is, moreover, unable to ensure his own safety for even the next day?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“She had a passion for anyone who did something top-notch.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“She had a passion for all people who did anything to perfection.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“-Mam iść tam za nim? - ujmując cugle, niespokojnie zapytał mistrz.
-Nie – odpowiedział mu Woland. - Po cóż iść za tropem tego, co się już skończyło?”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Bulgakov always loved clowning and agreed with E. T. A. Hoffmann that irony and buffoonery are expressions of ‘the deepest contemplation of life in all its conditionality”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Odczekał chwilę, wiedząc, że nie ma takiej siły, która kazałaby tłumowi zamilknąć, zanim nie wyrzuci z siebie wszystkiego, co ma na sercu, i nie zamilknie sam.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.” Takatsuki”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“Whether you want to or not. But the place you return to is always slightly different from the place you left. That’s the rule. It can never be exactly the same.” A”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“I've finally experienced what the poet felt. The deep sense of loss after you've met the woman you love, have made love, then said goodbye. Like you're suffocating. The same emotion hasn't changed at all in a thousand years.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres