Famous quotes by Dovlatov. Sergey Dovlatov - best quotes
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Dovlatov emigrated at the age of 37, and already at 49 he was gone, died of heart failure far from his homeland. He said more than once that he left to become a writer; he was not published in the USSR.
The best biography of Dovlatov was written by him: "I was born in a not very close-knit family. I studied mediocrely at school. I was expelled from the university. I served in the camp security for three years. I wrote stories that I could not publish. I was forced to leave my homeland. In America. I never became a rich or successful person. My children are reluctant to speak Russian. I am reluctant to speak English. A dam was built in my native Leningrad. It is not clear what is happening in my beloved Tallinn. Life is short. Man is lonely. I hope all this sad enough that I can continue to study literature ... "
In emigration, he published the newspaper "New American", for 12 years he published 12 books, including the cycle of stories "Suitcase", "Compromise", the story "Preserve", "Inostranka". He became the second Russian writer, after Nabokov, to appear in the reputable New Yorker. Contemporaries said that his books were an anecdotal saga about a bygone time, and many of his quotes, by the way, were later told as anecdotes. Today we recall the most famous statements of Sergei Donatovich.
About people…
Debt is the only thing that truly connects you to people.
Our memory is as selective as an urn ...
They don't ask God for supplements.
It is difficult to choose between a fool and a scoundrel, especially if the scoundrel is also a fool.
Love, friendship, respect are not so connected as a general hatred for something.
You don't have to be like everyone else, because we are like everyone else ...
Only death is irreparable.
More terrible than death - cowardice, cowardice and the inevitable after this - slavery.
The woman as such is a miracle.
Born to crawl to fly ... does not want to.
I prefer to be alone, but next to someone ...
There is no geographic province, there is a spiritual province.
You can, arguing about hydatopyromorphism, be a complete fool at the same time. Conversely, talking about fried mushrooms, be a very smart person.
He who suffers does not sin.
True courage lies in loving life, knowing the whole truth about it.
A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
I was ill for three days, and it had a wonderful effect on my health.
A family is if you can guess by the sound who exactly is washing in the shower.
In any situation, some degree of absurdity is needed.
Humor is the adornment of a nation ... As long as we are able to joke, we remain a great nation!
Irony is the favorite, and most importantly, the only weapon of the defenseless.
About politics and freedom ...
We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask - who wrote the four million denunciations?
After the communists, what I hate the most is anti-communists.
What a happiness it is to say what you think! What a torment it is to think what you are saying!
Two are more than You and I. Two are We ...
The paucity of thought gives rise to legions of like-minded people.
What is Democracy? Maybe a dialogue between a person and the state?
About money…
Money is freedom, space, whims ... Having money, it is so easy to endure poverty ...
My money, for example, runs out quickly, loneliness never.
About creativity ...
I'm not interested in what they write about me. I take offense when they do not write.
Talent is like lust. It's hard to hide. It's even harder to simulate.
In a foreign language, we lose eighty percent of our identity. We lose the ability to joke, to be ironic.
If you give creative freedom to a rooster, he will still crow.
All talented people write differently, all mediocre people write in the same way and even in one handwriting.
Any signature wants to be considered an autograph.
All normal people have complexes, only degenerates and skiers lack them.
About alcohol ...
I've read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit forever ... read.
Dozens of books have been written about the dangers of alcohol. There is not a single brochure about its benefits. It seems to me in vain ...
Alcoholism is curable, drunkenness is not.
If we stop now, it will be artificial. We drank when there was no money. It is foolish not to drink now that they are ...
Sergey Dovlatov- one of the most widely read Russian-speaking writers of the late twentieth century. But living in his homeland, he was unable to reach the reader with his works: they saw the light only after his emigration to the United States and began to be published in Russia only in the second half of the 80s, when they gained immense popularity.
In his stories, absurdity acts as the basis of order in human destiny. His heroes, ordinary, seemingly unremarkable people, turn out to be bright and unique, precisely because of their carelessness and irrelevance.
Dovlatov does not teach anyone or anything and does not judge anyone. He has no "positive" and "negative" characters, it all depends on the point of view. Because this is the main truth of life. Dovlatov's humorous and at the same time sad prose became a classic and, like any classic, went to the people in the form of proverbs and sayings:
- There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman.... You give facts, arguments, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that the very sound of your voice is disgusting to her.
- Love, friendship, respect are not so connected as a general hatred for something.
- A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
- Most people consider the problems unsolvable if they are not satisfied with the solution.
- People around love not honest, but kind. Not brave, but empathetic. Not principled, but condescending. In other words, unprincipled.
- A person is used to asking himself: who am I? There is a scientist, an American, a chauffeur, a Jew, an immigrant ... But you should ask yourself all the time: am I not shit?
- It is not money that attracts women. Not cars or jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a person powerful, rich and elegant. The power that some are endowed with and others are completely devoid of.
- All my life I blew through a telescope and was surprised that there was no music. And then he carefully looked at the trombone and was surprised that he didn't see a damn thing.
- We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask - who wrote the four million denunciations?
- The only honest path is the path of mistakes, disappointments and hopes..
- What else, but loneliness is enough. Money, say, I quickly run out of money, loneliness - never ...
- It's crazy to live with a man who doesn't leave just because he is lazy ...
- I walked and thought - the world is in madness. Madness is becoming the norm. The norm evokes a sense of wonder.
- Do you know what is most important in life? The main thing is that there is one life. A minute passed, and the end. There will be no other ...
- The more hopeless the goal, the deeper the emotions..
- Love is for youth. For military personnel and athletes ... But here everything is much more complicated. There is no longer love, but fate.
- The editor was a good-natured person. Of course, until that minute, until he became cruel and angry.
- I only light a cigarette when I'm drunk. And I drink incessantly. Therefore, many people mistakenly think that I smoke.
- I felt disgusted and left. Rather, he stayed.
- God is not asked for supplements.
- I counted the money without taking my hand out of my pocket.
- There is no greater tragedy for a man than a complete lack of character!
- I prefer to be alone, but next to someone ...
- I have not divided people into positive and negative for a long time. And literary heroes - even more so. In addition, I am not sure that in life, crime is inevitably followed by repentance, and heroic deeds - bliss. We are what we feel ourselves to be.
- I think love has no dimensions at all. There is only - yes or no.
- Man to man - whatever you want ... Depending on the coincidence of circumstances.
- It's okay to visit when called. It is terrible to go to visit when they are not invited. However, the best thing is when someone calls you and you don't go.
- A family is if you can guess by the sound who exactly is washing in the shower.
- "Life is Beautiful and amazing!" - as Comrade Mayakovsky exclaimed on the eve of his suicide.
- I will not change the linoleum. I changed my mind because the world is doomed.
Prepared by Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection quotes from the writer Sergei Dovlatov (1941 - 1990).
Lively and varied sayings , without the inclination, characteristic of many Russian writers, to teach us how to live.
Quotes summarized by topics: human manifestations, writers, about themselves, women and men, life ethics, love, alcohol and smoking, people, literature, family, fools, irony and humor, language, loneliness, life, money, inferiority complex, Russia.
About human manifestations
Man to man - whatever you want ... Depending on the coincidence of circumstances.
People around love not honest, but kind. Not brave, but empathetic. Not principled, but condescending. In other words, unprincipled.
I felt disgusted and left. Rather, he stayed.
It's okay to visit when called. It is terrible to go to visit when they are not invited. However, the best thing is when someone calls you and you don't go.
A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
He who suffers does not sin.
The more hopeless the goal, the deeper the emotions.
I will not change the linoleum. I changed my mind because the world is doomed.
When the brave is silent, the cowardly is silent ...
Only cowards get used to fear.
Born to crawl to fly ... does not want to.
It is through its impunity that rudeness is killing you on the spot, you have nothing to oppose to it, except for your own humiliation, because rudeness is always “from top to bottom”.
The editor was a good-natured person. Of course, until that minute, until he became cruel and angry.
About writers
Joseph Brodsky is the only influential Russian in the West who clearly, a lot and effectively helps people.
It seems to me that Brodsky is successfully dragging Russian literature out of the provincial swamp. Next to Chekhov, even Tolstoy looks like a provincial.
Limonov is a talented person, a modern Russian nihilist. Edichka Limonova is a direct offspring of Bazarov. The product of wingless, boorish, stifling materialism.
Belov, Likhonosov, Astafiev, Rasputin are talented and outstanding writers. Nevertheless, at the heart of their work is an evasive sluggish motive. The writers are racking their brains: “Where are you, Rus? Where did it go? Who ruined you? "... Who, who ... Yes, any seventh grader knows - who! However, this tragic truth is not for Soviet writers. Even if they are very talented ...
What did Valentin Kataev come to in his declining years? All the material benefits that he snatched from the regime at the cost of endless humiliation, betrayal and betrayal are available in the Western world to any conscientious plumber! And probably more and more often a desperate cry from the depths of the soul of this old, intelligent, talented, cynical and unprincipled person is bursting: - What did you fight for ?! Why was someone else's blood shed ?! And deathly silence - in response.
Hemingway was our idol, he was not only loved as a writer, but they also tried to live by his models, and therefore the disappointment in him was especially strong, because a person can truly despise and hate only his own weaknesses and sins.
I once asked Vonnegut, who lives between Lexington and Third:
- Probably everyone here knows you?
Vonnegut replied:
- For ten years I have been walking here with my terrier. And at least one person would shout to me: "Are you Vonnegut ?!"
About myself
After the communists, what I hate the most is anti-communists.
I'm not interested in what they write about me. I take offense when they do not write.
My life is now quite tolerable, I don't do a damn thing, I read and get fat. But sometimes it is so bad at heart that you want to stuff yourself in the face.
There are many things that amazed us in America. Supermarkets, blacks, photocopiers, smiling postal workers ...
Personally, I wrote mainly for my ex-wife. Trying to prove to her what treasure she had lost.
My main goal is not to write faster, but slower. The best thing would be to carve words in stone - not forever, but not in a hurry.
Don’t think I’m flirting, but I’m not sure I consider myself a writer. I would like to consider myself a storyteller. They are not the same thing. The writer is busy with serious problems - he writes about what people live for, how people should live. And the narrator writes about HOW people live.
All my life I blew through a telescope and was surprised that there was no music. And then he carefully looked at the trombone and was surprised that he didn't see a damn thing.
My drunkenness has subsided, but the attacks of depression are becoming more frequent. It's just that all my life I've been waiting for something: a certificate of maturity, loss of virginity, marriage, a child, the first book, minimal money, but now everything has happened, there is nothing more to wait, there are no sources of joy. My main mistake is in the hope that having legalized myself as a writer, I will become cheerful and happy. This did not happen.
About women and men
It is not money that attracts women. Not cars or jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a person powerful, rich and elegant. The power that some are endowed with and others are completely devoid of.
There is no greater tragedy for a man than a complete lack of character!
"The main thing in a book and in a woman is not the form, but the content." Even now, after countless disappointments in life, this attitude seems boring to me. And I still only like beautiful women.
There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman. You give facts, arguments, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that the very sound of your voice is disgusting to her.
Relationships with women are always difficult for a good man. A good person is expected to behave accordingly. High demands are placed on him. He carries on himself a daily painful burden of nobility, intelligence, diligence, conscience, humor. And then they dump him for some notorious bastard. And this bastard is told, laughing, about the boring virtues of a good man.
For a whole year, there was a kind of intellectual intimacy between us. With a touch of enmity and debauchery.
About life ethics
A person is used to asking himself: who am I? There is a scientist, an American, a chauffeur, a Jew, an immigrant ... But you should ask yourself all the time: am I not shit?
True courage lies in loving life, knowing the whole truth about it.
You don't have to be like everyone else, because we are like everyone else ...
I have not divided people into positive and negative for a long time. And literary heroes - even more so. In addition, I am not sure that in life, crime is inevitably followed by repentance, and heroic deeds - bliss. We are what we feel ourselves to be.
The only honest path is the path of mistakes, disappointments and hopes.
In any situation, some degree of absurdity is needed.
Easy not to steal. Moreover - not to kill ... It is much more difficult - not to judge ... Just think - do not judge! And yet, “don't judge” is a whole philosophy.
More terrible than death - cowardice, cowardice and the inevitable after this - slavery.
The best way to overcome your inherent insecurity is to be as confident as possible.
About love
I think love has no dimensions at all. There is only yes or no.
As a matter of fact, I don't even know what love is. The criteria are missing completely. Unhappy love - I still understand that. What if everything is okay? In my opinion, this is alarming.
The opposite of love is not disgust or even indifference, but a lie.
To love in public is bestiality.
When a person is left alone and at the same time is called the most beloved, it becomes sickening.
You say - it means there was no love. Love was. Love went ahead, and you fell behind.
Love is for youth. For military personnel and athletes ... But here everything is much more complicated. There is no longer love, but fate.
About alcohol and smoking
I only light a cigarette when I'm drunk. And I drink incessantly. Therefore, many people mistakenly think that I smoke.
Alcoholism is curable, drunkenness is not.
I've read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit forever ... read.
Dozens of books have been written about the dangers of alcohol. There is not a single brochure about its benefits. It seems to me in vain ...
Yes, I drank! Yes, I am somewhat liberated. Excited by the company of a beautiful lady. But ideologically I'm sober!
If we stop now, it will be artificial. We drank when there was no money. It is foolish not to drink now that they are ...
About people
Most people consider the problems unsolvable if they are not satisfied with the solution.
All people can be divided into two categories. Into two groups. The first group is those who ask. The second group is those that answer. The person who asks questions, I can recognize at a distance of a kilometer. I associate his personality with the concept of a loser.
We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask - who wrote the four million denunciations?
Love, friendship, respect are not so connected as a general hatred for something.
Our memory is as selective as an urn ...
Literature
All talented people write differently, all mediocre people write in the same way and even in one handwriting.
Talent is like lust. It's hard to hide. It's even harder to simulate.
Russia is the only country in the world where a writer is paid for the amount of writing. Not for the number of copies sold. And even more so - not for quality. And for the volume. This is the secret, unconscious reason for our catastrophic Russian verbosity. Let's say the author wants to cross out a phrase. And an inner voice tells him: "Abnormal! It's five rubles! A kilo of beef on the market ..."
For many years, American Slavic studies innocently focused on Soviet literary sources, and therefore the history of our culture seemed distorted.
About family
A family is if you can guess by the sound who exactly is washing in the shower.
Two are more than You and I. Two are We ...
The family is not a unit of the state. The family is the state and it is. Struggle for power, economic, creative and cultural problems. Exploitation, dreams of freedom, revolutionary sentiments. Etc. This is the family.
It's crazy to live with a man who doesn't leave just because he is lazy ...
About fools
What can you do with a fool? The fool is omnipresent and active. He broke through the OVIR. I flew across the ocean. And he crushes better than Andropov.
The paucity of thought gives rise to legions of like-minded people.
You can, arguing about hydatopyromorphism, be a complete fool at the same time. Conversely, talking about fried mushrooms, be a very smart person.
About irony and humor
Irony is the favorite, and most importantly, the only weapon of the defenseless.
Humor is a tool for cognizing life: if you investigate a phenomenon, then find what is funny in it, and the phenomenon will reveal itself to you in its entirety. All this has nothing to do with professional humor and the desire to entertain the reading public.
About language
Language cannot be good or bad ... After all, language is only a mirror. The very mirror that is foolish to blame.
In a foreign language, we lose eighty percent of our identity. We lose the ability to joke, to be ironic.
About loneliness
What else, but loneliness is enough. Money, say, I quickly run out of money, loneliness - never ...
I prefer to be alone, but next to someone ...
About life
Do you know what is most important in life? The main thing is that there is one life. A minute passed, and the end. There will be no other ...
"Life is Beautiful and amazing!" - as Comrade Mayakovsky exclaimed on the eve of his suicide.
About money
Money is freedom, space, whims ... Having money, it is so easy to endure poverty ...
I counted the money without taking my hand out of my pocket.
About an inferiority complex
An inferiority complex is a huge force. It's just not clear - destructive or constructive ...
All normal people have complexes, only degenerates and skiers lack them.
About Russia
In tsarist Russia, man was taken to the bottom by vices. In Soviet Russia - dignity ...
The nightmare of Stalinism is not even that millions died. The nightmare of Stalinism is that an entire nation has been corrupted. Wives betrayed their husbands. The children cursed their parents.
About different things
Selfless lies are not lies, they are poetry.
I regret some of the statements. Others are ready to tattoo on their chest ...
I looked around the empty suitcase. At the bottom - Karl Marx. On the lid is Brodsky. And between them a lost, priceless, only life.
What a happiness it is to say what you think! What a torment it is to think what you are saying!
They don't ask God for supplements.
Anti-Semitism is just a special case of evil, I have never in my life met a person who would be an anti-Semite, and in all other respects would not differ from normal people.
Jazz is ourselves at our best hours. That is, when spirituality, fearlessness and frankness coexist in us ...
I was ill for three days, and it had a wonderful effect on my health.
Tourism is the life of the idle.
Any signature wants to be considered an autograph.
Dovlatov has been gone for almost thirty years, but they continue to read him. Probably because it looks like talking to a good person ... But it is not easy nowadays to talk to a good person, especially a writer.
Quotes about Dovlatov
- I. Brodsky: His stories rest mostly on the rhythm of the phrase; at the cadence of the author's speech. They are written like poems: the plot in them is of secondary importance, it is only a pretext for speech. It is more of a singing than a story.
- A. Genis: Dovlatov also has an excess of skill. In his sentence, the words spin until they snap into place with an almost audible click. But then you can't shake them out of there.
- P. Weil: Sergei really wanted a mass reader and understood that he needed a sob next to a laugh. This is perhaps the only point where Dovlatov compromised his taste. Otherwise, he was solid and practically invulnerable.
- P. Weil, A. Genis: Dovlatov is like a gold piece: everyone likes it.
The most interesting quotes and statements about a person, life and love, one of the most popular and read Russian-speaking writers
“Envious people think that women are attracted to the rich by their money. Or what you can buy with this money. I used to think so too, but then I became convinced that it was a lie. It is not money that attracts women. Not cars and jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a person powerful, rich and elegant. The power that some are endowed with and others are completely deprived of. "
Sergei Dovlatov is one of the most famous and widely read Russian-speaking writers of the late twentieth century. His books have been translated into a huge number of languages. Many of his stories and stories are filmed. Dovlatov's incredibly humorous and at the same time sad prose became classics and, like almost any classics, went to the people in the form of proverbs and sayings. During his long period of life while in exile, he published about twelve books.
There are no righteous people in the books of Sergei Donatovich, because there are no villains in them either. His idea is simple and noble: to tell how strange people live - sometimes laughing sadly, sometimes grieving funny. Sergei knows that both heaven and hell are within ourselves.
The club has collected the best quotes and statements by Sergei Dovlatov about a person, life and love: