A book is open in front of me and this is what it has today about the symptoms of morphine withdrawal:'... morbid anxiety, a nervous depressed condition, irritability, weakening of the memory, occasional hallucinations and a mild impairment of consciousness...' I have not experienced any hallucinations, but I can only say that the rest of this description is dull, pedestrian and totally inadequate.' Depressed condition' indeed! Having suffered from this appalling malady, I hereby enjoin all doctors to be more compassionate toward their patients. What overtakes the addict deprived of morphine for a mere hour or two is not a 'depressed condition': it is slow death. Air is insubstantial, gulping it down is useless... there is not a cell in one's body that does not crave... but crave what? This is something which defies analysis and explanation. In short, the individual ceases to exist:he is eliminated. The body which moves, agonizes and suffers is a corpse. It wants nothing, can think of nothing but morphine. To die of thirst is a heavenly, blissful death compared with the craving for morphine. The feeling must be something like that of a man buried alive, clawing at the skin on his chest in the effort to catch the last tiny bubbles of air in his coffin, or of a heretic at the stake, groaning and writhing as the first tongues of flame lick at his feet. Death. A dry, slow death. That is what lurks behind that clinical, academic phrase 'a depressed condition'.

— Mikhail Bulgakov

And now tell me, why is it that you use me words "good people" all the time? Do you call everyone that, or what?- Everyone, - the prisoner replied. - There are no evil people in the world.(- А теперь скажи мне, что это ты все время употребляешь слова добрыелюди"? Ты всех, что ли, так называешь?- Всех, - ответил арестант, - злых людей нет на свете.)

— Mikhail Bulgakov

Anoushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it.

— Mikhail Bulgakov

– 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 of things 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? And in fact, – here the stranger turned to Berlioz, – imagine that you, for instance, start governing, giving orders to others and yourself, generally, so to speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get ...hem ... hem ... lung cancer ... – here the foreigner smiled sweetly, and if the thought of lung cancer gave him pleasure — yes, cancer — narrowing his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word —and so you're governing is over! You are no longer interested in anyone’s fate but your own. Your family starts lying to you. Feeling that something is wrong, you rush to learned doctors, then to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers as well. Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless, as you understand. And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought he was governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box, and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good for anything, burn him in an oven. And sometimes it’s worse still: the man has just decided to go to Kislovodsk – here the foreigner squinted at Berlioz – a trifling matter, it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knows why, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he who governed himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he was governed by someone else entirely?

— Mikhail Bulgakov

But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.

— 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

Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.

— 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

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

— 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