Quotes About Gogol

In a novel, all his life's anxieties, his mixture of strength and weakness, his potential for hysteria - all would have been swirled away in a vortex of love leading to the blissful calm of marriage. But one of life's many disappointments was that it was never a novel, not by Maupassant or anyone else. Well, perhaps a short satirical tale by Gogol.

Not over-interested in domestic matters, it was true; but then neither was he. In a novel, all his life's anxieties, his mixture of strength and weakness, his potential for hysteria--all would have been swirled away in a vortex of love leading to the blissful calm of marriage. But one of life's many disappointments was that it was never a novel, not by Maupassant or anyone else. Well, perhaps a short satirical tale by Gogol (p.38)

Akhmatova, like Gogol, wanted to possess nothing. She gave away the presents given to her, and a few days later they would be found in other people's houses. This characteristic recalls the behavior of nomads, compelled to the provisional by necessity and by choice...When eastern Europe furnishes such models of detachment, why seek them out in India or elsewhere? (from Anathemas and Admirations)

The greatest books in Russian literature are satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, is a very over-the-top satire about life in Russia. I think it's the thing we do best.

[F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.

Of style or beauty of expression he would need to take no account, for the value of a book lies in its truth and its actuality rather than in its wording.

What use am I?...How can I help feeling stings of conscience when I know that I am a useless burden on the earth?

For a loaf is something baked and a nose is something different.

I jabbered too much in class about all the Russian writers whom I admired for being, among other things, uncouth and somewhat humorously melodramatic, such as Gogol and Dostoyevsky, just as it was in my own household when I was growing up.

Dostoevski's The Double is his best work though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol's Nose.

We must thank fate (and the author's thirst for universal fame) for his not having turned to the Ukrainian dialect as a medium of expression, because then he would have been lost. When I want a good nightmare I imagine Gogol penning in Little Russian dialect volume after volume of Dikanka and Mirgorod stuff about ghosts haunting the banks of the Dniepr, burlesque Jews and dashing Cossacks.

And have you ever run across a bright and enlivening sun in Gogol—a man from Ukraine?

thought of this introductory part of the interrogation as the Manilov-Chichikov routine, after the characters in Gogol's Dead Souls who dawdled at great length at the door, each trying to let the other enter first. But whereas in Gogol's novel the two men eventually went through the door together, I never permitted myself to violate the etiquette of the investigation.

And in a very civil fashion did Manilov did so, even going as far as to address the man in the second person plural.

Intr-adevar, peste doua minute, nasul iesi. Era într-o uniforma cusuta în fir de aur, cu guler tare si înalt, cu pantaloni din piele de caprioara si cu sabie la sold. Dupa palaria cu pompon de pene, se putea vedea ca avea gradul de consilier de stat.

Despair at not reaching ideal perfection are among the reasons given. Again it is said.

So," went on Chichikov, "if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as well proceed to the completion of the purchase." "What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?" "Of the 'dead' souls? Oh dear no! Let us write them down as LIVING ones, seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns.

Godine 2000, aprila 43.; Martobra 86. Izme?u dana i no?i; Datum nikoji Dan je bio bez datuma; Datuma se ne se?am. Meseca tako?e nije bilo. Bilo je vrag bi ga znao šta.; Datum 1.; Madrid Februarij trideseti; Januar iste te godine, koji je nastupio posle februara; 25. datum; Datum 34 godine Februar 349.

and by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism.

quelle mille inezie che sembrano inezie solo quando vanno a finire dentro un libro, ma quando circolano per il mondo sono considerati affari molto importanti.

Nevertheless, the brother-in-law appeared to bode little danger, seeing that he had taken on board a full cargo, and was now engaged in doing nothing of a more menacing nature than picking his nose.

On the twenty-fifth day of March, an extraordinary strange incident occurred in Petersburg.

There was a story to do with this story: It was told us by Stephan Ivanovich Kurochka, who used to come over from Gadyach.

Ukrainian was to Gogol "the language of the soul," and it was in Ukrainian songs rather than in old chronicles, of which he was not a little contemptuous, that he read the history of his people.