Mikhail Bulgakov

‘I don’t even have an ass, Hegemon,’ he said.

Get out,’ said Woland.
‘I haven’t had coffee yet,’ replied the cat, ‘how can I leave?

One is the much-quoted ’Manuscripts don’t burn‘, which seems to express an absolute trust in the triumph of poetry, imagination, the free word, over terror and oppression, and could thus become a watchword of the intelligentsia

This moment of fear, however, brings me to the second aphorism — ’Cowardice is the most terrible of vices’ — which is repeated with slight variations several times in the novel.

Bulgakov’s gentle irony is a warning against the mistake, more common in our time than we might think, of equating artistic mastery with a sort of saintliness, or, in Kierkegaard’s terms, of confusing the aesthetic with the ethical.

Once terror is identified with the world, it becomes invisible.

Now, Berlioz wanted to prove to the poet that the main thing was not how Jesus was, good or bad, but that this same Jesus, as a person, simply never existed in the world, and all the stories about him were mere fiction, the most ordinary mythology.

"By kindness. The only way to deal with a living being.

The person who always finds time is the one who is never in a hurry,

Doctor, humanity-takes care of all that for us in her own good time and according to the order of evolution, and by distinguishing from the mass of the low and the lowly, she creates a few dozen exceptional geniuses to grace this earth of ours. Now you see, Doctor, why I faulted your conclusions on the case history of Sharik. My discovery, devil take it and swallow it whole, is of as much use as a sick headache. Don't argue with me, Ivan Arnoldovich. I've understood it all now. I never talk hot air, you know that. Theoretically it's interesting. All right, then! Physiologists will be in ecstasy. Moscow will go crazy... But, practically speaking, what will happen? Who do you see before you now?" Preobrazhensky pointed in the direction of the consulting room, where Sharikov was taking his rest.