Absolute certainty Quote by Ivan Turgenev

I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of…

— Ayn Rand

Tolstoy was the most gifted writer who ever lived. It's like he stuck a pen in his heart and it didn't even go through…

— Mel Brooks

Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.

— A. N. Wilson

“They certified that I was sane; but I know that I am mad." This confession gives us the key to what is most important…

— Lev Shestov

When you started looking at the life of Tolstoy, there was so much passion and anger and drama surrounding him.

— Elif Batuman

This is not Tolstoy. I don't want to know what critics and professors think of what I'm writing. It might hurt my feelings.

— Lisa Kleypas

“I know very well you can't help me," he said. "But I tell you, because unsuccessful and superfluous people like me find their salvation…

— Anton Chekhov

I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.

— Norman MacCaig

Everything Tolstoy wrote is precious, but I found this final statement of the truth about life as he had come to understand it particularly…

— Malcolm Muggeridge

“...Tolstoy's characters seem to come forward to meet you, very conscious of the impression they are making on one another and on the reader.”

— Stephen Spender

“Epilogues are for Tolstoy”

— E.M. Forster

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

— Mike Tyson