Do you know, I couldn’t live a month in this house? This atmosphere would stifle me. ibid. Astroff
You drink and you gamble. Please stop. ibid. Sonia to Astroff
I am dying of this tedium. What shall I do? ibid. Helena to Sonia
We are confronted by the degradation of our country brought on by the fierce struggle for existence of the human race. It is a consequence of the ignorance and unconsciousness of starving, sick humanity that to save its children instinctively snatches at everything that can warm it and still its hunger. ibid. Astroff to Helena
What can we do? We must live our lives. Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old: and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. ibid. Sonia
It’s just a year since father died last May 5th, on your name-day, Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought I would never survive it, and you were in the dead faint. Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters, 1901, Olga
In 25 years’ time we shall all be dead. ibid. Soleni
Our present existence, with which we are so satisfied, will in time appear strange, inconvenient, stupid, unclean, perhaps even sinful. ibid. Vershinin
In two or three hundred years’ time life on this Earth will be unimaginably beautiful and wonderful. ibid.
Suppose we could live life over again, knowing what we are doing … ibid.
It’s a cursed, unbearable life. ibid. Masha
Let’s all get drunk and make life purple for once. ibid.
How strangely life changes, and how it deceives! ibid. Andrey
Civilians in general are so often course, impolite, uneducated. ibid. Masha
It seems to me that everything on Earth must change. ibid. Vershinin
Either you must show why you live, or everything is trivial. ibid. Masha
My wife has poisoned herself again. ibid. Vershinin
They think I’m a doctor and can cure everything, and I know absolutely nothing. ibid. Chebutikin
Perhaps I don’t exist at all, and only imagine that I walk, and eat and sleep. ibid.
My God, I thought, what these girls will go through if they live long. ibid. father’s monologue
What life will be like then ... ibid.
I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored … ibid. Masha
I can’t work, I shan’t work. ibid. Irina
My brain has dried up, and I’ve grown thinner, plainer, older, and there’s is no relief … I can’t understand how it is that I am alive, that I haven’t killed myself. ibid.
They only eat, drink, sleep, and then they die. ibid. Andrey
The present is beastly, but when I think of the future, how good it is! ibid.
Life is heavy. To many of us it seems dull and hopeless. ibid. Vershinin
There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering, and there will be no more mysteries. ibid. Irina
In a little while we shall know why we are living, why we are suffering. If we could only know, if we could only know … ibid.