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| You can see a vast old orchard from your window. What does it make you think of? | |
| If they divide the orchard into building plots and lease them out for summer cottages, they'll have a pretty nice annual income. | |
| Without this garden my life has no meaning. | |
| I feel so happy and excited, I feel as if everything in the world made sense. | |
| Have you ever been called a nincompoop? | |
| I don't bother. The great majority of the human race is crude, stupid, and talks nonsense. | |
| I am a nincompoop indeed. | |
| What does that word even mean? | |
| Are you longing to go to Moscow? | |
| Yes, to Moscow! As soon as I can. | |
| No, thank you, I prefer Paris. | |
| I'd rather go to a convent. | |
| Life is barbarous everywhere, no need to go to Moscow | |
| Do you love fishing? | |
| If I lived in a house by a lake, I'd give up my work and do nothing but fish. | |
| Not me. I spend the whole day doing jobs around the house: I must be doing something useful every minute of the day. | |
| What about getting down to some real work for a change? | |
| Fishing is boring, almost like Russian classical literature. | |
| Somebody's put a bird that's been shot at your feet. What do you do? | |
| Wow. I write down a note about it or make a picture. | |
| I start signing off my letters with 'Seagull'. | |
| I continue fishing. | |
| I think this person is a nincompoop. | |
| What is your dream? | |
| My head is swimming, as I dream about success and having a fascinating, brilliant life full of meaning. | |
| I dream about getting up at dawn and working. Better to be a workhorse than somebody who wakes up at noon, has coffee in bed and spends two hours getting dressed. | |
| In two or three hundred years, life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astonishing. And if we don't have it yet we must dream of it, prepare for it. | |
| What would you write in a postcard to your beloved? | |
| 'If you should ever need my life, then come and take it.' | |
| 'My dear! We'll rid ourselves of the pettiness and the illusions which stop us being free. That's the whole meaning and purpose of our lives.' | |
| I am always up early in the morning, you know. And work till late. No time for that. | |
| None of your business, you, nincompoop! | |