ABRAMS Press

The glory of show business is that it gives the people what they want. The glory of art is that it gives us what we never knew we wanted.

woman has a great responsibility: to give birth. But she doesn’t give birth to ideas – that is the responsibility of men.’

The Russian classics are, admittedly, not the most obvious place to look for tips for a happier life. Russian literature is full of gloomy people wondering how on earth they have ended up in the appalling predicament in which they find themselves, looking around desperately for someone else to blame and then realizing that, in fact, they were right in the first place: life really is extremely inconvenient and annoying, and we are all just waiting to die.