Bulgakov Quotes & Sayings

In front of me 327 pages of the manuscript [Master and Margarita] (about 22 chapters). The most important remains - editing, and it's going to be hard. I will have to pay close attention to details. Maybe even re-write some things ... 'What's its future?' you ask? I don't know. Possibly, you will store the manuscript in one of the drawers, next to my 'killed' plays, and occasionally it will be in your thoughts. Then again, you don't know the future. My own judgement of the book is already made and I think it truly deserves being hidden away in the darkness of some chest.
[Bulgakov from Moscow to his wife on June 15 1938] — Mikhail Bulgakov

I, the unfortunate Doctor Polyakov, who became addicted to morphine in February of this year, warn anyone who may suffer the same fate not to attempt to replace morphine with cocaine. Cocaine is a most foul and insidious poison. Yesterday Anna barely managed to revive me with camphor injections and today I am half dead. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have. — Henry Rollins

... But as soon as the dirty snow disappeared from the sidewalks and streets, as soon as the slightly rotten, disquieting spring breeze wafted through the window, Margarita Nikolaevna began to grieve more than in winter. She often wept in secret, a long and bitter weeping. She did not know who it was she loved: a living man or a dead one? And the longer the desperate days went on, the more often, especially at twilight, did the thought come to her that she was bound to a dead man.
She had either to forget him or to die herself. It was impossible to drag on with such a life. Impossible! Forget him, whatever the cost - forget him! But he would not be forgotten, that was the trouble. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I believe you!' the artiste exclaimed finally and extinguishes his gaze. 'I do! These eyes are not lying! How many times have I told you that your basic error consists in underestimating the significance of the human eye. Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes - never! A sudden question is put to you, you don't even flinch, in one second you get hold of yourself and know what you must say to conceal the truth, and you speak quite convincingly, and not a wrinkle on your face moves, but - alas - the truth which the question stirs up from the bottom of your soul leaps momentarily into your eyes, and it's all over! They see it, and you're caught! — Mikhail Bulgakov

What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light? — Mikhail Bulgakov

But this is what disturbs me: if there is no God, then, the question is, who is in control of man's life and the whole order of things on earth? — 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

You were right," said the Master impressed by the neatness of Korovyov's work, "when you said: no documents, no person. So that means I don't exist since I don't have any documents. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Have just been run over by tram-car at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three pm come. Berlioz. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination. Kindly note my silhouette in the moonlight." The cat climbed into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to keep talking but was asked to be quiet. "Very well, I shall be silent," he replied, "I shall be a silent hallucination. — Mikhail Bulgakov

You pronounced your words as if you don't acknowledge the shadows, or the evil either. Would you be so kind as to give a little thought to the question of what your good would be doing if evil did not exist, and how the earth would look if the shadows were to disappear from it? — Mikhail Bulgakov

The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes - never! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Aren't there enough plays already? There are such lovely plays and so many of them. If you were to start playing them you couldn't get through them all in twenty years. Why do you want to write? It must be so upsetting! — Mikhail Bulgakov

She had a passion for all people who did anything to perfection. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I was not even aware of getting dressed, which was no simple matter: trousers and shirt, felt boots, over my shirt a leather jerkin, then an overcoat topped by a sheepskin, fur hat, and my bag containing caffeine, camphor, morphine, adrenalin, clamps, sterile dressings, hypodermic, probe, a Browning automatic, cigarettes, matches, watch, stethoscope. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean covered the city so detested by the procurator ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

Don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long run down into the earth. And on the spot where it was spilled, grapevines are growing today. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I'll go to bed, forget myself in sleep. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! ... And so, let me hear your business. — Mikhail Bulgakov

To struggle against censorship, whatever its nature, and whatever the power under which it exists, is my duty as a writer, as are calls for freedom of the press. I am a passionate supporter of that freedom, and I consider that if any writer were to imagine that he could prove he didn't need that freedom, then he would be like a fish affirming in public that it didn't need water. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I hereby certify that the bearer of this note, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the night in question at Satan's ball, having been lured there in a transportational capacity ... Hella, put in parentheses! And write 'hog.' Signed- Behemoth. — Mikhail Bulgakov

My humble ... I don't drink ... '
'A shame! What about a game of dice, then? Or do have some other favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?
'I don't play games,' the already weary barman responded.
'Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something noce nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! Chapter 18 — Mikhail Bulgakov

The time had come to act, to drink the bitter cup of responsibility. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Well, now,' the latter replied pensively, 'they're people like any other people ... they love money, but that has always been so ... Mankind loves money, whatever it's made of -leather, paper, bronze, gold. Well, they're light-minded ... well, what of it ... mercy sometimes knocks at their hearts ... ordinary people ... In general, reminiscent of the former ones ... only the housing problem has corrupted them ... ' Chapter 12 — Mikhail Bulgakov

To speak the truth is easy and pleasant. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The streetlights had already lit up on Bronnaya, and a golden moon hung over the Patriarchs. In the ever deceiving lunar light, it appeared to Ivan Nikolayevich that, instead of a cane, the professor stood holding a sword under his arm. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Am I to follow him?" the master enquired uneasily, with a touch on his reins.
"No," answered Woland, "why try to pursue what is completed? — Mikhail Bulgakov

Just like a murderer jumps of nowhere in an ally, love jumped out in front of us and struck us both at once — Mikhail Bulgakov

I wouldn't like to meet you when you've got a revolver, said Margarita with a coquettish look at Azazello. She had a passion for people who did things well. — Mikhail Bulgakov

What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? — Mikhail Bulgakov

This whole speech, extremely silly, tactless and probably politically dangerous, made Pavel Iosifovich shake with rage, but, strange as it might seem, it could be seen from the eyes of the crowd of customers that had gathered that it had aroused sympathy in very many people! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Why try to pursue what is completed? — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

He was coming to understand he could not come to rectify anything in his life, only forget. — 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

They were arguing about something very complex and important, and neither of them could refute the other. They did not agree with each other in anything, and that made their argument especially interesting and endless. — Mikhail Bulgakov

I suppose that in no educational institution can one become an educated person. — Mikhail Bulgakov

If you've been exiled, why don't you send me word of yourself? People do send word. Have you stopped loving me? No, for some reason I don't believe that. It means you were exiled and died ... Release me, then, I beg you, give me freedom to live, finally, to breathe the air! ... ' Margarita Nikolaevna answered for him herself: 'You are free ... am I holding you?' Then she objected to him: 'No, what kind of answer is that? No, go from my memory, then I'll be free ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

My writing is progressing slowly, but at least it's moving forward. I'm sure that's the case. The only problem is that I'm never absolutely certain that what I've written is any good. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Happiness is like good health: when you have it, you don't notice it. But as the years go by, oh, the memories, the memories of happiness past! — Mikhail Bulgakov

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! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Better not sit on a hedgehog if you're naked." ~ Russian Author Mikhail Bulgakov ~ The White Guard 1925 — T.C. Donivan

She was carrying these revolting, disturbing yellow flowers. God knows what they're called, but for some reason they're the first to appear in Moscow. And these flowers stood out very distinctly from her black spring coat. She was carrying yellow flowers! — Mikhail Bulgakov

She gave a little jump and hung in the air a little way above the rug, then she slowly began to be drawn downwards and dropped .. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Everything passes away - suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will 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 toward the stars? Why? — Mikhail Bulgakov

Who ever told you there is no such thing in the world as real, true, everlasting love? May the liar have his despicable tongue cut out! — Mikhail Bulgakov

That's really bad," concluded the host, "say what you will, but there's something evil lurking in men who avoid wine, games, the society of delightful women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among those who have sat down with me at the banqueting table, there have sometimes been some astonishing scoundrels! And so, I'm listening to why you're here. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

You spoke your words as though you denied the very existence of the shadows or of evil. Think, now: where would your good be if there were no evil and what would the world look like without shadow? — Mikhail Bulgakov

He looked to be a little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. Right eye black, left -for some reason- green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher than the other. In short, a foreigner. — Mikhail Bulgakov

She had a passion for anyone who did something top-notch. — Mikhail Bulgakov

No one's fate is of any interest to you except your own. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The hope that there she would manage to regain her happiness made her fearless — 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

The toads bellowed mournfully, and the twilight was enrobing the professor. Here it was ... the night. Moscow ... white lamps turning on somewhere outside ... Lost and miserable, Pankrat stood fearfully at attention, arms at his sides ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

Sweetly, albeit hoarsely and with a burr, the girl started singing something scarcely comprehensible, but, judging by the women's faces in the stalls, very seductive:
Guerlain, Chanel no 5, Mitsuko, Narcissus noir, evening dresses, cocktail dresses.. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

Bulgakov always loved clowning and agreed with E. T. A. Hoffmann that irony and buffoonery are expressions of 'the deepest contemplation of life in all its conditionality — Mikhail Bulgakov

Cowardice is the greatest sin. — Mikhail Bulgakov

But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. As lightning strikes, as a Finnish knife strikes! She, by the way, insisted afterwards that it wasn't so, that we had, of course, loved each other for a long, long time, without knowing each other, never having seen each other ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

Ah, professor, if only you had discovered a way of rejuvenating hair! Chapter 2 — Mikhail Bulgakov

For Bulgakov, however, the greatest underlying source of unease, amounting at times to despair, was something less tangible though very real to him, since it occurs as an ever-present refrain throughout these stories. This was the sense of being a lone soldier of reason and enlightenment pitted against the vast, dark, ocean-like mass of peasant ignorance and superstition... [in] the fearsome, pre-literate, mediaeval world of the peasantry — Michael Glenny

His swearing is methodical, continuous, and apparently entirely senseless. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.
'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on: 'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order on earth?'
'Man governs it himself' Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly none-too-clear question.
'Pardon me,' the stranger responded gently, 'but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period -well, say, a thousand years- but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? — Mikhail Bulgakov

The brick is neither here nor there,' interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, 'it never merely falls on someone's head from out of nowhere. In your case, I can assure you that a brick poses no threat whatsoever. You will die another kind of death.
'And you know just what that will be?' queried Berlioz with perfectly understandable irony, letting himself be drawn into a truly absurd conversation. 'And can you tell me what that is?'
'Gladly,' replied the stranger. He took Berlioz's measure as if intending to make him a suit and muttered something through his teeth that sounded like 'One, two.. Mercury in the Second House ... the moon has set ... six-misfortune ... evening-seven ... ' Then he announced loudly and joyously, 'Your head will be cut off! — Mikhail Bulgakov

The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation! — Mikhail Bulgakov

What is all this? Get him out of here, devil take me!" And that one, imagine, smiles and says: "Devil take you? That, in fact, can be done!" And - bang! — Mikhail Bulgakov

You are not Dostoevsky,' said the woman ...
'You never can tell ... ' he answered.
'Dostoevsky is dead,' the woman said, a bit uncertainly.
'I protest!' he said with heat, 'Dostoevsky is immortal! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Cowardice is the most terrible of vices. — Mikhail Bulgakov

He who never hurries is always on time. — Mikhail Bulgakov

But why don't you take him with you into the light?
He does not deserve the light, he deserves peace — Mikhail Bulgakov

Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them. — Mikhail Bulgakov

It's nice to hold on to a holiday midnight a little longer than usual — Mikhail Bulgakov

O thrice-romantic Master, would you not rather take long walks in a blooming cherry tree alley with your friend and listen to Schubert in the evenings? Would you not rather write by candlelight with a quill pen? Like Faust, would you not rather sit over a retort in the hopes of crafting a new homunculus? That is your desination, there. A house awaits you, with an aging servant; the candles are already lit and will soon extinguish as dawn inevitably arrives. Take this path, Master, and farewell! I must go. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

Twelve men conducted the investigation, gathering as on a knitting-needle the accursed stitches of this complicated case all over Moscow. — Mikhail Bulgakov

It must be added that from his first words the foreigner made a repellent impression on the poet, but Berlioz rather liked him - that is, not liked but ... how to put it ... was interested, or whatever. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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

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

Not causing trouble, not touching anything, fixing the primus. — 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! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Manuscripts do not burn. — Mikhail Bulgakov

There is absolutely no necessity to learn how to read; meat smells a mile off, anyway. — Mikhail Bulgakov

Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny. — Denise Mina

One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is a tradition, paradoxically, of experimenters and innovators. Perhaps the principal quality that unites them is their approach to reality and its uses in art - the refusal to be bound by literal fact, the interweaving of reality and fantasy, the transmutation of fact into poetry, often grotesque, oblique, playful, but always expressive of the writer's unique vision of life in his own, unique terms. — Mirra Ginsburg

Literature has become my life. — Mikhail Bulgakov

In short, you sensed that she was there, Moscow, right there, around the turn, and about to heave herself upon you and engulf you. — Mikhail Bulgakov

... oh, you faithless, unfortunate man! ... Because of you I spent the whole night yesterday shivering and naked. I lost my nature and replaced it with a new one, I spent several months sitting in a dark closet thinking about one thing, about the storm over Yershalaim, I cried my eyes out, and now, when happiness has befallen us, you drive me away! Well, then I'll go, I'll go, but you should know that you are a cruel man! They've devastated your soul! — Mikhail Bulgakov

Everyone listened to this amusing narrative with great interest, and the moment that Behemoth concluded it, they all shouted in unison: 'Lies! — Mikhail Bulgakov

These sorrowful musings on my imperfection were nothing compared to the awful realization that I had gained precisely nothing from reading the books of the very best writers; no avenues had opened up, no light gleamed ahead and it had done nothing but depress me. Wormlike, the awful thought began to gnaw at my heart that I should never make a writer. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The most uncomplicated thing of all!' he replied. 'For someone well acquainted with the fifth dimension, it costs nothing to expand space to the desired proportions. I'll say more, respected lady - to devil knows what proportions! I, however,' Koroviev went on chattering, 'have known people who had no idea, not only of the fifth dimension, but generally of anything at all, and who nevertheless performed absolute wonders in expanding their space. Thus, for instance, one city-dweller, as I've been told, having obtained a three-room apartment on Zemlyanoy Val, transformed it instantly, without any fifth dimension or other things that addle the brain, into a four-room apartment by dividing one room in half with a partition. — 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

In order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can't even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years, and is, moreover, unable to ensure his own safety for even the next day? — Mikhail Bulgakov

The dog rose on his hind legs in front of Philip Philipovich and performed obeisance to him. — Mikhail Bulgakov