Short Fiction quotes

What of that? It is, after all, but a single instant of weakness. A proud will shall conquer this slight suffering of a single relative by conferring great love upon the many, the strangers, the grievous sufferers.

What is the woe of one mother!

Let Niobe weep eternally for her children, killed by the burning, poisoned arrows of the high Dragon; let Rachel remain unconsoled forever—what is the woe of a poor mother? Serene is Apollo’s face, radiant is Apollo’s dream.

Her heart begins to beat with fright. It is always terrible to receive telegrams. For only good news travels slowly.

Bad news makes haste.

Natasha puts one end of the door-chain to a little hook in the door. Then she opens the door partly and looks out. There stands the messenger in his uniform, with a metal plate in his cap. He hands her the telegram.

“What do you understand about it? What do you know of masks?

There is no mask without a responding soul.

It is impossible to put on a mask without harmonizing your soul with its soul. Otherwise the mask is uncovered.”

Volodya sighed. He let his arm fall languidly. He let his depressed eyes rest on his books.

It was a long autumn evening.⁠ ⁠… The wall was a melancholy white.⁠ ⁠… On the other side of the wall something wept and rustled.

Volodya’s mother found him a second time with the shadows.

Volodya flushed violently and answered morosely: “There is a wall there also.

The walls are everywhere.

”

Volodya and his mother understood them. Both were smiling sadly and were saying weird and impossible things to each other. Their faces were peaceful and their eyes looked clear; their joyousness was hopelessly sorrowful and their sorrow was wildly joyous.

In their eyes was a glimmer of madness, blessed madness.

The night was descending upon them.

beggars—these clung to him; and the mechanical process of walking itself.

How difficult to conquer space and time when one is in a hurry!

Truly the earth drew him to itself and he purchased every step with violence and exhaustion. He felt pains in his legs. This increased his spite, and intensified the glimmer of hunger in his eyes.

Moshkin asked the question in a careless manner, borrowed from the district official who had caused him to lose his place. He also knew from experience that one must address porters just like this, and not like that.

Wandering in strange gates and on strange staircases gives one a certain polish.

The porter asked somewhat suspiciously: “Who do you want?”

How rough the stone slabs were on the canal’s banks, and how dusty the stones of the pavements, and what stupid and dirty children ran to meet him! Everything seemed shut against him and everything seemed hostile to him.

The green, golden waters of the canal lured him, and the glimmer of hunger in his eyes went out forever.

What a noise the swift splash of water made, as, ring after ring, the dead black rings spread out and out, and cut the green golden waters of the canal.

Everything in Lelechka’s nursery was bright, pretty, and cheerful. Lelechka’s sweet voice charmed her mother.

Lelechka was a delightful child. There was no other such child, there never had been, and there never would be.

Lelechka’s mother, Serafima Alexandrovna, was sure of that. Lelechka’s eyes were dark and large, her cheeks were rosy, her lips were made for kisses and for laughter. But it was not these charms in Lelechka that gave her mother the keenest joy.

“A little gentleman!” said he to himself. “Quite a small fellow. And simply bursting with joy. Just look at him cutting his paces!”

He could not quite understand it. Somehow it seemed strange to him.

Here was a child—a thing to be pulled about by the hair! Play is mischief. Children, as everyone knows, are mischief-makers.

“You stupid!” said the farmer’s daughter. “Of course you haven’t got wings. What do you want wings for?”

“I want to fly up into the sky and sing my little songs there,” answered the little peasant girl.

Then the farmer’s daughter was angry, and said again, “You stupid! How can you ever expect to grow wings? Your father’s only a farm-labourer. They might grow on me, but not on you.”

I had better only give wings to one of you, namely to her who wanted them first of all.”

So wings grew from the little peasant girl’s shoulders, and she was able to fly up into the sky and sing.

Turandina never quarrelled with anyone, and she never said anything untrue. When she was advised to use the ordinary Society evasions she shook her head and said:

“One must never say what is untrue. The earth hears everything.”

At home and in the company of others Turandina behaved with such dignity and graciousness that all who could believe in a fairytale were obliged to believe that they were in the presence of a beautiful princess, the daughter of a great and wise king.

“He loves me, poor boy,” thought Mashenka, and the thought became more and more pleasant to her.

To believe firmly that you are beloved by another, is it not as if you yourself loved? And is not love infectious?

Sweet, ingratiating, enchanting, love spreads a brightly gleaming veil of enchantment over all the objects of its desire.

Mashenka began to weep. What else could she do!

Tears are so helpful in the various difficulties of life.

She fumbled for her handkerchief, but, of course, it was not to be found, and she was obliged to wipe away her tears with the palm of her right hand—the tears which trickled mercilessly down both cheeks and along her little upturned nose.

One year follows after another, the centuries pass away, and still to man is never revealed the mystery of the world and the greater mystery of his own soul.

Man seeks and questions, but does not find an answer. Wise men are as children; they do not know.

And there are some people who have not even got so far as to ask the question:

But he didn’t read for very long. He climbed up on the window-seat and looked out upon the children in the yard. Presently, trying to forget a slight headache, he let himself dream a little.

To dream⁠—that was Grishka’s favourite occupation.

He imagined all sorts of things in all sorts of ways, but he himself was always in the centre—he dreamed about himself and the world.

She cast me into a terrible dream, and I shall never wake out of that dream, and forever I shall be unable to remember my real name. And I shall never be able to answer truly the question, ‘Who am I?’ ”

Who am I, sent into this world by an unknown will for an unknown end?

If I am a slave, then whence have I the power to judge and to condemn, and whence come my lofty desires? If I am more than a slave, then why does all the world around me lie in wickedness, ugliness, and falsehood?

She had such confident pride in him and in herself. He would come at the right time, as he always did—as everything in life would come at its own appointed time.

Standing there, erect and proudly confident, there was an expression on her beautiful pale face as if she wore a crown.

She was remembering something which had happened ten years ago, in that year when her husband had died, leaving her so soon after their wedded life had begun.

Look straight into the eyes of men. Triumph over grief; fear neither life nor the approach of death. Drive far from thee all mean desires and slavish thoughts. In poverty and in bondage and in misery let thy soul be proud and free.”

“Though in slavery, I will be free.”

“Then you shall wear a crown,” said the princesses.

Then she thought about the bit that was left, and she said to herself: “I’ll break that in two again and give half of it to the little girl.”

At last so little remained of the lump of candy that it wasn’t worth while giving it to the poor girl⁠—so she ate up what was left.

And she put the sugar back where it was before.

The little doggie repented, yes, but it was too late.

When the little boy heard this he began to cry, and he said:

“I don’t want to eat a bull⁠—a bull has got horns.”

Bobby took fright, and said hesitatingly:

“But, papa, you know it would be a golden post, with a bit of writing on it⁠—‘For Bravery.’ ”

For it was only a dream-life! It was for her alone. The unborn can never rejoice or weep for himself. He lives, but not for himself. In the world of the living, in the midst of people and earthly things, he doesn’t exist at all.

So full of life, so dear, so bright, and yet he is not.

Nadezhda Alexevna used to say to herself, “And this is my doing. Now he is small and he doesn’t understand.

Perhaps she had thrown herself down upon her bed and was weeping—weeping endlessly. Happy woman, happy, if she could weep.

What in this world is sweeter than the comfort of tears!

At length Nadezhda Alexevna reached her sister’s home, and went up the staircase to the fourth floor.

“What’s the matter? I won’t discuss whether we are equal, but if you don’t want me to eat you, then do you please swallow me if you can—swallow me, don’t be afraid, I shan’t set on you.”

The little fish opened his mouth and poked about trying to get the big fish in, sighed at last and said:

“You have it. Swallow me.”

“Oh, you scoundrel! What are you doing?”

“You’d have done better to get out of the way. I don’t like people getting in my way. Everything arranged for my benefit⁠—that’s my motto.”

The stone fell on a soft bed and thought: “I’ve flown a bit, and now I’ll lie down for a while and rest.”

And the fourth was hanged.

Poor innocent elements! Foolish desiring ones!

Oh, why did Will lead them forth from the happy place of nonexistence!

Poor innocent elements! Foolish desiring ones!

Oh, why did Will lead them forth from the happy place of nonexistence!

They quarrelled among themselves as to which road to take, and they separated.

The morning light found them all on different ways and far from the place whither they were bound.

“This key is really stupid if it can only open one door.” But the key said to her:

“You’re a thieves’ skeleton-key, but I am a true and honest door-key.”

This the skeleton-key did not understand. She did not know what truth and honesty were, and she thought that the door-key was so old that she had gone out of her mind.

They swung themselves about and at last got free.

They fell to the ground and withered. Presently the gardener came and swept them away with the refuse.

The soldiers followed on their own tracks, and the cries of the boy on the heath were heavy on their souls.

Round and round they wandered and killed in fury and yet could not kill.

At last, just before sunrise, with madness at their heels the troop galloped on to the shore of the sea. And the waves boiled under the frenzied onrush of the horses.

The man finished. The candles were blown out and the people went away.

And it was just as before.

There was one grey candle burning. A woman sat and sewed. A child slept, and coughed in his sleep. There was a draught from the walls. The candles wept white, heavy tears. The tears trickled away and froze. It began to dawn.

There are all sorts of boys in this world, good ones and bad ones.

Once there were two boys, a good boy and a truant. A magician came to them—it was Uncle Better.

“There’s no need for me to be better,” said the truant. “I am good enough as I am.

Too much goodness might tear my mouth apart with yawning.

”

“Well, remain a truant,” Uncle Better said to him. “As for you, my good boy, you will become so sweet that everyone will marvel at you.”

The good boy became so sweet that he began to ooze with treacle.

Hardly anyone was glad to see him. Wherever he went he made the place sticky with treacle. His mother was angry with him.

A man went by, and spat three gobs of spit.

He walked away, the gobs remained.

“He came precisely for the purpose of planting us here.

We are the goal of man’s life. He has gone, but we have remained.

”

The gardener’s young son cried because they were cutting down the fairy tales, but no one would listen to him.

As if there were not enough things that one might choose to cry about!

The queen looked at the fairy tales, and asked in astonishment:

A drop of rain fell through the air, a speck of dust lay on the ground.

The drop wished to unite with a hard substance; it was tired of its free, active existence.

It joined itself to the speck of dust—and lay on the ground a blob of mud.

And she began to say such brazen and ungodly things that the brave, invincible Knight trembled, and made haste to open the cell.

Death went out⁠—and men began to die once more.

The Knight himself died when his time came—and he told no one upon the earth what that expressionless, brazen woman, Life, had said to him.

But a huge crow happened to fly by, caught the little man by his collar, and took him off to its nest, to feed its tots with. The little man repented for having obeyed the old sparrow, but it was too late.

Perhaps the old sparrow had purposely prearranged the whole thing.

The old dotard and dotardess were buried.

There is nothing to grieve about: there will always be dotards and dotardesses.

It was evening, and I was together with my sadness in the silent embrace of my walls.

The minutes burned, because I did not yet know how to extinguish their consuming flame.

And my reverie struggled helplessly on the yellow, shining boards of my floor.

“So I should think! Why, you ate up an ox at one go, didn’t you?”

“It’s impossible to eat up an ox at one go,” replied Aglaya, placidly.

She quickly fell asleep, but Saranin could not get to sleep in this strange autumn night.

For a long time he tossed about from side to side.

When a Russian cannot sleep, he thinks about things.

Saranin, too, devoted himself to that activity, which was so little peculiar to him at any other time. For he was an official—and so had little reason to think about this and that.

Can’t there be a way of making me grow, or else of reducing Aglaya’s size? Some secret way or other? But how to find it? How? You won’t find it by lying here.

Even water won’t flow under a stone at rest.

But to look for this secret remedy. … It may be that the inventor is actually walking the streets and looking for a purchaser. Yes, of course. He can’t advertise in the papers.

“

Big wife, tiny husband⁠—to kiss, put up a ladder. Phew, not good!

”