Russian-Soviet writer (1891-1940)
Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes--never!
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
Writers don't live their lives. They are simply making a report on it.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
A Cabal of Hypocrites
Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!
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
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
It is easy to go downhill; gravity does all the work.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
A Cabal of Hypocrites
But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
And what remains for us to do, my friends? When life is such a dismal pit, it must be left behind without delay! My friends, let us all go and drown ourselves! Look out of the window, at the river! It beckons us to come!
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Life of Monsieur de Molière
No documents, no person.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
Difficult folk, these women!
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
There's one thing that troubles me, my friends. It isn't right for us to drown ourselves at night, after supper. People will say we did it because we were drunk. We shall go to bed now and sleep till morning, and at ten o'clock, washed and dressed properly, with proudly lifted heads, we shall walk to the river, so that everybody will see that we drowned ourselves like true philosophers.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Life of Monsieur de Molière
The trouble with truth is that not only does truth stink; it usually does not exist.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Last Days
Don't be humble. You're not that great.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Days of the Turbins
It's all over, so let's not burden the telegraph system.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
For some reason, cats are usually addressed familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk bruderschaft with anyone.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
In the midst of my spleen and my yearnings for the past, and despite these ridiculous cramped circumstances I find myself in, in this vile room in this foul apartment-block, I sometimes experience, as at this moment, bursts of confidence and strength. And I become aware of the thought darting up in me that it is true, I am immeasurably more powerful a writer than any of those I know. But in conditions such as the ones I have presently to endure I may have to kowtow to them.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
diary, 2 September 1923
To struggle against one's own flaws requires constant vigilance, but when you struggle against other people's flaws, you have to move more carefully and slowly.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The White Guard
Kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You'll get nowhere with an animal if you use terror, no matter what its level of development may be. That I have maintained, do maintain and always will maintain. People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour -- white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita