Mikhail Bulgakov Quotes

43 Sourced Quotes

'Never ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They'll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves.'

Mikhail Bulgakov
Second freshness - that's what is nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first - and it is also the last. And if sturgeon is of the second freshness, that means it is simply rotten.'

Mikhail Bulgakov
They have read your novel... and they said only one thing, that, unfortunately, it is not finished. So I wanted to show you your hero. He has been sitting here for about two thousand years, sleeping, but, when the moon is full, he is tormented, as you see, by insomnia. And it torments not only him, but his faithful guardian, the dog. If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it. The only thing that brave creature ever feared was thunderstorms. But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one who is loved.

Mikhail Bulgakov
'What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and happy friends?'

Mikhail Bulgakov
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
Foreign visitors... how impressed you all are with foreign visitors! But they come in many different varieties.

Mikhail Bulgakov
Only if some microorganism doesn't attack these tender hothouse plants and eat away at their roots, only if they don't rot! And that can happen with pineapples! Oh, yes, indeed it can!

Mikhail Bulgakov
It was clear to him that he had lost something irretrievably that day, and that now he wanted to make up for the loss with minor, inconsequential, and most importantly, belated measures.

Mikhail Bulgakov
Ryukhin showed himself no mercy-'I don't believe in anything I've ever written!'

Mikhail Bulgakov
Gods, my gods! How sad the earth is at eventide! How mysterious are the mists over the swamps. Anyone who has wandered in these mists, who has suffered a great deal before death, or flown above the earth, bearing a burden beyond his strength knows this. Someone who is exhausted knows this. And without regret he forsakes the mists of the earth, its swamps and rivers, and sinks into the arms of death with a light heart knowing that death alone...

Mikhail Bulgakov
"We speak different languages, as usual," responded Woland, "but this does not change the things we speak about. Well?..."

Mikhail Bulgakov
The cat, covered in dust and standing on its hind legs, bowed to Margarita. Round its neck it was now wearing a made-up white bow tie on an elastic band, with a pair of ladies' mother-of-pearl binoculars hanging on a cord. It had also gilded its whiskers.

Mikhail Bulgakov
'Kant ought to be arrested and given three years in Solovki asylum for that "proof" of his!' Ivan Nikolayich burst out completely unexpectedly. 'Ivan!' whispered Berlioz, embarrassed. But the suggestion to pack Kant off to an asylum not only did not surprise the stranger but actually delighted him. 'Exactly, exactly!' he cried and his green left eye, turned on Berlioz glittered. 'That's exactly the place for him! I said to him myself that morning at breakfast: "If you'll forgive me, professor, your theory is no good. It may be clever but it's horribly incomprehensible. People will think you're mad."' Berlioz's eyes bulged. At breakfast... to Kant?

Mikhail Bulgakov
How sad, ye gods, how sad the world is at evening, how mysterious the mists over the swamps. You will know it when you have suffered greatly before dying, when you have walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. You know it too when you are weary and ready to leave this earth without regret; it's mists, it's swamps and it's rivers; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.

Mikhail Bulgakov
Nobody should be whipped. Remember that, once and for all. Neither man nor animal can be influenced by anything but suggestion.

Mikhail Bulgakov
The procurator studied the new arrival with avid, and slightly fearful eyes. It was the kind of look one gives someone one has heard of and thought a lot about, and whom one is meeting for the first time.

Mikhail Bulgakov
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
'Unfortunately I cannot show it to you,' replied the master, 'because I burned it in my stove.'
'I'm sorry but I don't believe you,' said Woland. 'You can't have done. Manuscripts don't burn.'

Mikhail Bulgakov
'I do not know these good men,' replied the prisoner.

Mikhail Bulgakov
We have no idea whether there were any other strange occurences in Moscow that night, and we have no intention of trying to find out, since the time has come for us to proceed to Part Two of this true narrative. Follow me, reader!

Mikhail Bulgakov
Allow me to inquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow?

Mikhail Bulgakov
Oh, what a marvelous affirmation of evolutionary theory! Oh, what a great chain extends from a dog to Mendeleev the chemist!

Mikhail Bulgakov
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!

Mikhail Bulgakov
I challenge you to a duel! screamed the cat, sailing over their heads on the swinging chandelier.

Mikhail Bulgakov
'He's clever,' thought Ivan,' I must admit there are some smart people even among the intelligentsia'

Mikhail Bulgakov
The most amazing combinations can result if you shuffle the pack enough.

Mikhail Bulgakov
'I had the pleasure of meeting that young man at the Patriarch's Ponds. He almost drove me mad myself, proving to me that I don't exist. But you do believe that it is really I?'

Mikhail Bulgakov
'You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev.

Mikhail Bulgakov
'For some reason, cats are usually addressed familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk bruderschaft with anyone.'

Mikhail Bulgakov
You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.

Mikhail Bulgakov