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Mikhail Bulgakov Quotes (1891-1940)
Playwright, Novelist
About Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (15 May O.S. 3 May 1891 – 10 March 1940) was a Russian-language novelist and playwright of the first half of the 20th century.
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“Manuscripts don't burn.”
“No documents, no person.”
“Well, as everyone knows, once witchcraft gets started, there's no stopping it.”
“Ryukhin showed himself no mercy-'I don't believe in anything I've ever written!'”
“'Oh, no, you don't look like a halfwit,' the procurator replied quietly and smiled some strange smile.”
“'For some reason, cats are usually addressed familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk bruderschaft with anyone.'”
“Foreign visitors . . . how impressed you all are with foreign visitors! But they come in many different varieties.”
“[S]aid the not entirely suppressed old Ivan, rearing his head from inside the new one, although without much confidence.”
“Quotations are sourced from published English translations of the original work. The translations are abbreviated as:”
“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!”
“'What is all this? Damn me if I don't have you thrown out of here!' The beast just smiled and said: 'Damn you, I think you said? Very well!'”
“Cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices - thus spoke Yeshua Ha-Nozri. 'No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!'”
“'Don't be afraid, Queen … don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long since gone into the earth. And where it was spilled, grapevines are already growing.'”
“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!”
“'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.'”
“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.”
“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 Quotes by Topic
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Mikhail Bulgakov on Mental health of Jesus
“[Pontius Pilate speaks to Yeshua] 'Oh, no, you don't look like a halfwit,' the procurator replied quietly and smiled some strange smile.”
Mikhail Bulgakov on Moscow
Mikhail Bulgakov on Hope
“Everything passes away — suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?”
Mikhail Bulgakov on Turn
“Everything passes away — suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?”
Quotes About Mikhail Bulgakov
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Niall Ferguson on Mikhail Bulgakov
“In Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, the Devil comes to Moscow. What follows is a fearful spiral of denunciation, disappearance and death, at once arbitrary and spiteful, calculated and yet deranged. No work better captures the loathsome quality of the Terror; no scene gets closer to illuminating the surreal atmosphere of the show trials than Nikanor Bosoy's nightmare of being exposed as a foreign currency dealer while sitting in the audience of a variety show in a Moscow theatre. For not every act in the drama required Stalin's instigation; his role was to create an environment in which ordinary men and women - even members of the same family - would denounce one another; in which today's torturer could be tomorrow's victim; in which today's camp commandant could spend the night in the punishment cells.”
About Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (15 May O.S. 3 May 1891 – 10 March 1940) was a Russian-language novelist and playwright of the first half of the 20th century.