Top 180 Mikhail Bulgakov Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “What you say is true,’ the master observed, struck by the neatness of Koroviev’s work, ’that if there are no papers, there’s no person. I have no papers, so there’s precisely no me.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

102. “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

103. “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

104. “Bulgakov began work on the first version of the novel early in 1929, or possibly at the end of 1928.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

105. “Koniec seansu! Maestro! Zasuwaj pan marsza!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

106. “Once in 1919, when I was traveling at night by train, I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

107. “The monthly magazine Moskva, otherwise a rather cautious and quiet publication, carried the first part of The Master and Margarita in its November 1966 issue.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

108. “No, make me forget you, then I’ll be free.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

109. “Bulgakov’s gentle irony is a warning against the mistake, more common in our time than we might think, of equating artistic mastery with a sort of saintliness, or, in Kierkegaard’s terms, of confusing the aesthetic with the ethical.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

110. “The pantry was cool and smelled of mice and boots.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

111. “No. Never, not even when falling asleep, will I ever proudly mutter about nothing being able to surprise me. No. As one year has passed, so will another, and it will be just as rich in surprises as the first one... And so I have to go on dutifully learning.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

112. “His swearing is methodical, continuous, and apparently entirely senseless.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

113. “The dog rose on his hind legs in front of Philip Philipovich and performed obeisance to him.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

114. “If You Want To Experience Great Positive Change In Your Life, Always Prune Your Good Habits Towards That Change, And Uproot Any Bad Habits That May Be Limiting You.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

115. “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

116. “I don’t like the news on the radio. It’s always read by girls of some sort who pronounce the place names incomprehensibly. What’s more, one in three of them has a slight speech defect, as though such ones are selected deliberately.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

117. “The lodger told Anfisa, Anna Frantsevna’s long-time and devoted housekeeper, to say, in case he received any telephone calls, that he would be back in ten minutes, and left together with the proper, white-gloved policeman. He not only did not come back in ten minutes, but never came back at all.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

118. “Ah, professor, if only you had discovered a way of rejuvenating hair!” Chapter 2.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

119. “These words, which do not appear in the definitive text, tell us how painfully Bulgakov weighed the question of cowardice and guilt in considering the fate of his hero, and how we should understand the ending of the final.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

120. “Why, when all’s said and done, do I have to think up a pretext for my every action? I mean, it really is torment, not a life!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

121. “This was at dusk, in mid-October. And she left. I lay down on the sofa and fell asleep without turning on the light. I was awakened by the feeling that the octopus was there. Groping in the dark, I barely managed to turn on the light. My pocket watch showed two o’clock in the morning. I was falling ill when I went to bed, and I woke up sick. It suddenly seemed to me that the autumn darkness would push through the glass and pour into the room, and I would drown in it as in ink.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

122. “He’s already the devil knows where!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

123. “Trousers don’t suit cats, messire,’ replied the cat with great dignity. ‘Why don’t you tell me to wear boots? Cats always wear boots in fairy tales. But have you ever seen a cat going to a ball without a tie? I don’t want to make myself look ridiculous.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

124. “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

125. “What am I crying for, when I’ve got some wine?”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

126. “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

127. “Literature has become my life.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

128. “For an addict there is one pleasure of which no one can deprive him – his ability to spend his time in absolute solitude. And solitude means deep, significant thought; it means, calm, contemplation – and wisdom.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

129. “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

130. “It happens that way when a man strives to become the centre of attention, to bring sensational news somewhere.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

131. “Twelve men conducted the investigation, gathering as on a knitting-needle the accursed stitches of this complicated case all over Moscow.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

132. “How can we help Mikhail Alexandrovich? By staying hungry? But us, you know, we’re alive!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

133. “But I judge by the eyes – you can’t mistake them either near or far! Oh, eyes are a significant thing! Like a barometer. You can see everything – who has a vast desert in his heart, who can jab you in the ribs with the toe of his boot for no reason at all, and who is afraid of everything.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

134. “Then he hung up, the scoundrel!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

135. “The thought that there is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason? Yes, yes, of course, that, too. But that – that’s only a general thought. There’s something else. What is it? An insult, that’s what. Yes, yes, insulting words hurled right in his face by Homeless. And the trouble is not that they were insulting, but that there was truth in them.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

136. “It’s all over,’ the cat said in a weak voice, sprawled languidly in a pool of blood, ‘step back from me for a second, let me say farewell to the earth. Oh, my friend Azazello,’ moaned the cat, bleeding profusely, ‘where are you?’ The cat rolled his fading eyes in the direction of the dining-room door. ‘You did not come to my aid in the moment of unequal battle, you abandoned poor Behemoth, exchanging him for a glass of – admittedly very good – cognac!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

137. “He who does not hurry manages to get everywhere.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

138. “Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes – never!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

139. “Of course, when people have been robbed of everything, like you and me, they seek salvation from other-worldly powers!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

140. “El hombre es mortal, y, como acertadamente se dijo, es mortal de repente.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

141. “No, what’s the use, there’s no leaving a place like this for any amount of freedom, thought the dog sniffing dismally, I’ve got used to it. I’m a gentleman’s dog, an intelligent being, acquired a taste for the good things of life. And what is freedom? Smoke, mirage, fiction... the raving of those unhappy-democrats...”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

142. “And who’s going to pay the rent – Pushkin?”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

143. “But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn’t exist?”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

144. “A quarter of an hour later, Ruikhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only possible to forget.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

145. “He’s clever,” thought Ivan. “You have to admit, there are some smart people even among the intelligentsia. No denying that!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

146. “Gods, gods! How sad the evening earth! How mysterious the mists over the bogs! Whoever has wandered in these mists, whoever suffered deeply before death, whoever flew over this earth burdened beyond human strength knows it. The weary one knows it. And he leaves without regret the mists of the earth, its swamps and rivers, and yields himself with an easy heart to the hands of death, knowing that it alone can bring surcease.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

147. “She must either forget him or die herself. It was impossible to go on like this. Impossible! She must forget him, forget him at any cost! But she could not forget him, that was the trouble.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

148. “It is interesting to note that Margarita’s soul was in perfect shape.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

149. “The coal-black gloom of the darkest night had descended on the terraces of the most beautiful spot on earth, St Vladimir’s Hill, whose brick-paved paths and avenues were hidden beneath a thick layer of virgin snow.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov

150. “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 living things and people.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov