In a writer there must always be two people - the writer and the critic. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one's… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“The heroine of my writings is She, whom I love with all the forces of my being, She who always was, is… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“One's writing is good only when the intelligence and the imagination are in equilibrium. As soon as one of them overbalances the… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then—all the combinations made—they are tired… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,'… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
How interesting it would be to write the story of the experiences in this life of a man who killed himself in… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then, kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write,and publish as quickly as possible and as much as… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“In everything, almost in everything, I wrote I was guided by the need of collecting ideas which, linked together, would be the… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“I cannot think of those years without horror, loathing and heartache. I killed men in war and challenged men to duels in… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
The epitaph that I would write for history would say: I conceal nothing. It is not enough not to lie. One should… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious –… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“If you only knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that's what… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.” — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
