His everyday stories, based on his own observations, make the reader cry and laugh.
Being a freedom-loving person by nature, he was unable to settle down in the USSR and was forced to emigrate to the USA, where his talent was appreciated.
Dovlatov is one of the best minimalist writers. The comic and tragic, irony and humor, the funny and the absurd are closely intertwined in his short stories, anecdotes, and everyday sketches. The writer's life stories are laughter through tears.
The author of “The Reserve” and “The Zone” entered Russian literature with his inimitable light style. Sergei Dovlatov's style not only fell in love with readers, but also became a kind of antithesis to cumbersome Soviet rhetoric. He wrote about a living person in a false world. Therefore, his prose is funny and tragic at the same time.
Sergey Dovlatov - best quotes
…Envious people believe that women are attracted to rich men by their money. Or what can be purchased with this money. It's not money that attracts women. Not cars or jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a person powerful, rich and elegant. A power that some are endowed with and others are completely deprived of.
Family is if you can guess by the sound who is washing in the shower.
We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for good reason. And yet I want to ask - who wrote four million denunciations?
More terrible than death are cowardice, cowardice and what inevitably follows is slavery.
Either this is temporary or fair...
When choosing between a fool and a scoundrel, you will inevitably think about it. If you think about it, you will prefer the scoundrel. There is a kind of egoistic reason in the actions of a scoundrel. There is selfish and base logic. There is common sense. His actions are predictable. That is, you can and should fight a scoundrel... With a fool everything is different. His actions are unpredictable, chaotic, illogical. Fools dwell in the foggy, swirling chaos. They are not subject to the laws of gravity. They have their own biology, their own arithmetic. They don't care. They are immortal...
Mediocrity is more than balanced by obedience.
I remember Joseph Brodsky spoke as follows:
- Irony is a descending metaphor.
I was surprised:
- What does this mean - a descending metaphor?
“I’ll explain,” said Joseph, “listen.” “Her eyes are like turquoise” is a rising metaphor. And “her eyes are like brakes” is a descending metaphor.
The possessive instinct is expressed in different ways. It could be love for one's own good. Or maybe hatred of others.
The desire to command in an area foreign to oneself is tyranny.
People around them love not honest people, but kind ones. Not brave, but sensitive. Not principled, but condescending. In other words, unprincipled.
Nobility is the willingness to act contrary to one's own interests.
Judged for character traits. Condemned for the properties of nature.
There are people of the present, past and future. Depending on the focus of life.
It would be nice to start your play like this. The presenter says:
- It was clear, warm, sunny...
Pause.
- The penultimate day...
And finally, clearly:
- Pompeii!
… Tigers, for example, respect for lions, elephants and hippos. Mandavoshki - no one!!!
It's crazy to live with a man who doesn't leave just because he's lazy...
Are there extraterrestrial civilizations?
- Exist.
- Reasonable?
- Very reasonable.
- Why are they silent? Why aren't contacts established?
- That’s why they don’t establish that they are reasonable. Why the hell did we surrender to them?!
I am absolutely convinced that you can conquer any woman by endlessly photographing her.
Pushkin chased after women... Dostoevsky indulged in gambling... Yesenin caroused and fought in restaurants... Vices were characteristic of brilliant people to the same extent as virtues...
“That means you’re half a genius,” my wife agreed, “for you have enough vices...
The world is in madness. Madness becomes the norm. The norm evokes a sense of miracle.
I love being alone, but close to someone.
The conversation turned into a discussion with a hint of massacre.
Humor is the adornment of a nation... As long as we are able to joke, we remain a great nation!
There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman. You present facts, reasons, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that she is disgusted by the very sound of your voice...
About the author:
Sergei Dovlatov was born on September 3, 1941 in Ufa. The set of his first book was destroyed by order of the KGB. Published in samizdat. In 1978, due to persecution by the authorities, Dovlatov emigrated from the USSR and settled in the Forest Hills area of New York, where he became editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper The New American. In Russia, his prose (“Solo on Underwood”, “Compromise”, “Zone”, “Reserve”, etc.) officially began to be published after the writer’s death. During twelve years of emigration, he published twelve books in the USA and Europe. In the USSR, the writer was known from samizdat and his author’s broadcast on Radio Liberty.
Sergei Dovlatov died on August 24, 1990 in New York from heart failure. He was buried in the Mount Hebron Jewish Cemetery in Queens, New York.
In memory of Dovlatov
In Russia, the first street named after Sergei Dovlatov appeared in the city of Ukhta, Komi Republic.
The literary Dovlatov Prize, awarded by Zvezda magazine, is named in honor of Sergei Dovlatov.
On September 3, 2003, in Tallinn, in honor of Sergei Dovlatov, a memorial plaque was installed on the wall of house No. 41 on Vabriku Street (until the early 1990s - I. V. Rabchinsky Street), where the writer lived in apartment No. 4 for almost three years (1972 -1975).
On September 3, 2007 at 15:00 in St. Petersburg, on Rubinshteina Street, building 23, a solemn opening ceremony of a memorial plaque to the writer took place. The author of the memorial plaque is Alexey Arkhipov, a member of the Union of Artists of Russia.
Dovlatov emigrated at the age of 37, and at 49 he was gone, dying of heart failure far from his homeland. He said more than once that he left in order to become a writer; he was not published in the USSR.
The best biography of Dovlatov was written by himself: “I was born into a not very friendly family. I studied mediocrely at school. I was expelled from the university. I served for three years in the camp guard. I wrote stories that I could not publish. I was forced to leave my homeland. In America I never became a rich or successful person. My children are reluctant to speak Russian. I am reluctant to speak English. A dam was built in my beloved Tallinn. Life is short. sad enough for me to continue writing literature...”
In exile, he published the newspaper “New American”, over 12 years he published 12 books, including the cycles of stories “Suitcase”, “Compromise”, the stories “Reserve”, “Foreigner”. He became the second Russian writer, after Nabokov, to be published in the reputable New-Yorker. Contemporaries said that his books are an anecdotal saga about a bygone time; many of his quotes, by the way, were later told as anecdotes. Today we remember the most famous statements of Sergei Donatovich.
About people…
Debts are the only thing that truly connects you with people.
Our memory is selective, like an urn...
They don’t ask God for more.
It is difficult to choose between a fool and a scoundrel, especially if the scoundrel is also a fool.
Love, friendship, and respect are not connected as much as by a common hatred of something.
There is no need to be like everyone else, because we are like everyone else...
Only death is irreparable.
More terrible than death are cowardice, cowardice and what inevitably follows is slavery.
Woman, as such, is a miracle.
Born to crawl, he doesn’t want to fly.
I prefer to be alone, but next to someone...
There is no geographical province, there is a spiritual province.
It is possible, when discussing hydatopyromorphism, to be a complete fool. Conversely, when ranting about fried mushrooms, being a very smart person.
He who suffers does not sin.
True courage is to love life knowing the whole truth about it.
A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
I was sick for three days, and it had a wonderful effect on my health.
Family is if you guess by the sound who is washing in the shower.
Any situation requires some degree of absurdity.
Humor is the adornment of a nation... As long as we are able to joke, we remain a great nation!
Irony is the favorite, and most importantly, the only weapon of the defenseless.
About politics and freedom...
We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for good reason. And yet I want to ask - who wrote four million denunciations?
After communists, I hate anti-communists most of all.
What a joy it is to say what you think! What a torment it is to think about what you are saying!
Two are more than You and Me. Two are Us...
Poverty of thought gives rise to legions of like-minded people.
What is democracy? Perhaps a dialogue between a person and the state?
About money…
Money means freedom, space, whims... Having money makes it so easy to endure poverty...
For example, my money runs out quickly, but loneliness never runs out.
About creativity...
I'm not interested in what they write about me. I get offended when they don't write.
Talent is like lust. It's hard to hide. It's even harder to simulate.
In a foreign language we lose eighty percent of our personality. We are losing the ability to joke and be ironic.
If you give a rooster creative freedom, he will still crow.
All talented people write differently, all mediocre people write the same way and even in the same handwriting.
Any signature wants to be considered an autograph.
All normal people have complexes, only degenerates and skiers do not have them.
About alcohol...
I've read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit reading forever.
Dozens of books have been written about the dangers of alcohol. There is not a single brochure about its benefits. It seems to me in vain...
Alcoholism is curable, drunkenness is not.
If we stop now, it will be artificial. We drank when we had no money. It's stupid not to drink now that they are available...
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection quotes from writer Sergei Dovlatov (1941 - 1990).
Lively and varied sayings , without the characteristic tendency of many Russian writers to teach us how to live.
Quotes summarized by topic: human manifestations, writers, about themselves, women and men, life ethics, love, alcohol and smoking, people, literature, family, fools, irony and humor, language, loneliness, life, money, inferiority complex, Russia.
About human manifestations
A person can give anything to a person... Depending on the circumstances.
People around them love not honest people, but kind ones. Not brave, but sensitive. Not principled, but condescending. In other words, unprincipled.
I felt disgusted and left. Or rather, he stayed.
It’s normal to go visit when called. It’s terrible to go on a visit when you don’t invite me. However, the best thing is when they call you and you don’t go.
A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
He who suffers does not sin.
The more hopeless the goal, the deeper the emotions.
I won't change the linoleum. I changed my mind, because the world is doomed.
When the brave is silent, the coward is silent...
Only cowards get used to fear.
Born to crawl... does not want to fly.
It is precisely with its impunity that rudeness kills you outright; you have nothing to oppose it except your own humiliation, because rudeness is always “from top to bottom.”
The editor was a good-natured man. Of course, until the minute he became cruel and evil.
About the writers
Joseph Brodsky is the only influential Russian in the West who clearly, a lot and effectively helps people.
It seems to me that Brodsky is successfully dragging Russian literature out of the provincial swamp. Next to Chekhov, even Tolstoy seems provincial.
Limonov is a talented person, a modern Russian nihilist. Eddie Limonova is a direct offspring of Bazarov. The product of wingless, boorish, suffocating materialism.
Belov, Likhonosov, Astafiev, Rasputin are talented, bright writers. Nevertheless, at the heart of their work is an evasive, sluggish motive. Writers are scratching their heads: “Where are you, Rus'? Where did it go? Who ruined you?”...Who, who... Yes, any seventh grader knows who! However, this tragic truth is not for Soviet writers. Even if they are very talented...
What did Valentin Kataev come to in his declining years? All the material benefits that he wrested from the regime at the cost of endless humiliation, betrayal and betrayal are available in the Western world to any conscientious plumber! And probably, more and more often, a desperate cry bursts from the depths of the soul of this old, smart, talented, cynical and unprincipled man: - What did you fight for?! Why was someone else's blood shed?! And deathly silence is the answer.
Hemingway was our idol, they not only loved him as a writer, but also tried to live by his models, and therefore the disappointment in him was especially strong, because a person is only capable of truly despising and hating his own weaknesses and sins.
I once asked Vonnegut, who lives between Lexington and Third:
- Probably everyone here knows you?
Vonnegut replied:
- I’ve been walking here with my terrier for ten years. And at least one person would shout to me: “Are you Vonnegut?!”
About Me
After communists, I hate anti-communists most of all.
I'm not interested in what they write about me. I get offended when they don't write.
My life is quite tolerable now, I don’t do a damn thing, I read and get fat. But sometimes you feel so bad at heart that you want to punch yourself in the face.
There are many things that have amazed us in America. Supermarkets, blacks, copy machines, smiling postal workers...
Personally, I wrote mainly for my ex-wife. Trying to prove to her what treasure she had lost.
My main goal is to write not faster, but slower. It would be best to carve words on stone - not forever, but slowly.
Don't think I'm being flirty, but I'm not sure I consider myself a writer. I would like to consider myself a storyteller. It's not the same thing. The writer is busy with serious problems - he writes about what people live for, how people should live. And the narrator writes about HOW people live.
All my life I blew into a telescope and was surprised that there was no music. And then he looked carefully at the trombone and was surprised that he couldn’t see a damn thing.
My drinking has subsided, but my bouts of depression are becoming more frequent. It’s just that I’ve been waiting for something all my life: a matriculation certificate, losing my virginity, marriage, a child, my first book, minimal money, but now everything has happened, there’s nothing more to wait for, there are no sources of joy. My main mistake is in the hope that by becoming legalized as a writer, I will become cheerful and happy. This did not happen.
About women and men
It's not money that attracts women. Not cars or jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a person powerful, rich and elegant. A power that some are endowed with and others are completely deprived of.
There is no greater tragedy for a man than a complete lack of character!
“The main thing in a book and in a woman is not the form, but the content.” Even now, after countless disappointments in life, this attitude seems a little boring to me. And I still only like beautiful women.
There is one painful moment in a conversation with a woman. You present facts, reasons, arguments. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that she is disgusted by the very sound of your voice.
For a good man, relationships with women are always difficult. A good person is expected to behave accordingly. High demands are placed on him. He carries on himself the daily painful burden of nobility, intelligence, diligence, conscience, and humor. And then he is abandoned for some notorious scumbag. And this bastard is told, laughing, about the boring virtues of a good man.
For a whole year there was something like an intellectual intimacy between us. With a hint of hostility and debauchery.
About life ethics
Man is accustomed to asking himself: who am I? There is a scientist, an American, a driver, a Jew, an immigrant... But you should always ask yourself: am I shit?
True courage is to love life knowing the whole truth about it.
There is no need to be like everyone else, because we are like everyone else...
It’s been a long time since I’ve stopped dividing people into positive and negative. And even more so for literary heroes. In addition, I am not sure that in life a crime is inevitably followed by repentance, and a feat is followed by bliss. We are what we feel like.
The only honest road is the path of mistakes, disappointments and hopes.
Any situation requires some degree of absurdity.
It's easy not to steal. Moreover, don’t kill... It’s much more difficult - don’t judge... Big deal - don’t judge! Meanwhile, “don’t judge” is a whole philosophy.
More terrible than death are cowardice, cowardice and what inevitably follows is slavery.
The best way to overcome innate insecurities is to be as confident as possible.
About love
I think love has no dimensions at all. There is only yes or no.
In fact, I don’t even know what love is. There are no criteria at all. Unhappy love - I still understand that. What if everything is fine? I think this is alarming.
The opposite of love is not disgust or even indifference, but a lie.
Loving in public is bestiality.
When a person is abandoned alone and at the same time called the most beloved, it becomes sickening.
You claim that means there was no love. There was love. Love has gone ahead, and you have fallen behind.
Love is for young people. For military personnel and athletes... But here everything is much more complicated. This is no longer love, but fate.
About alcohol and smoking
I only light up when I'm drinking. And I drink constantly. Therefore, many people mistakenly think that I smoke.
Alcoholism is curable, drunkenness is not.
I've read so much about the dangers of alcohol! I decided to quit... reading forever.
Dozens of books have been written about the dangers of alcohol. There is not a single brochure about its benefits. It seems to me in vain...
Yes, I drank! Yes, I'm somewhat liberated. Excited by the company of a beautiful lady. But ideologically I’m sober!
If we stop now, it will be artificial. We drank when we had no money. It’s stupid not to drink now that they are available...
About people
Most people consider unsolvable those problems whose solution is of little satisfaction to them.
All people can be divided into two categories. Into two groups. The first group are those who ask. The second group are those who answer. I can recognize the person who asks questions from a kilometer away. I associate his personality with the concept of a loser.
We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for good reason. And yet I want to ask - who wrote four million denunciations?
Love, friendship, and respect are not connected as much as by a common hatred of something.
Our memory is selective, like an urn...
About literature
All talented people write differently, all mediocre people write the same way and even in the same handwriting.
Talent is like lust. It's hard to hide. It's even harder to simulate.
Russia is the only country in the world where a writer is paid for the volume of writing. Not for the number of copies sold. And especially not for quality. And for the volume. This is the secret, unconscious reason for our catastrophic Russian verbosity. Let's say the author wants to cross out a phrase. And his inner voice tells him: “He’s crazy! That’s five rubles! A kilo of beef on the market...”
For many years, American Slavic studies innocently relied on Soviet literary sources, and therefore the history of our culture seemed distorted.
About family
Family is if you guess by the sound who is washing in the shower.
Two are more than You and Me. Two are Us...
The family is not a unit of the state. The family is the state. The struggle for power, economic, creative and cultural problems. Exploitation, dreams of freedom, revolutionary sentiments. Etc. This is what family is.
It's crazy to live with a man who doesn't leave just because he's lazy...
About fools
What can you do with a fool? The fool is omnipresent and active. I got through the OVIR. Flew across the ocean. And he presses harder than Andropov.
Poverty of thought gives rise to legions of like-minded people.
It is possible, when discussing hydatopyromorphism, to be a complete fool. Conversely, when ranting about fried mushrooms, being a very smart person.
About irony and humor
Irony is the favorite, and most importantly, the only weapon of the defenseless.
Humor is a tool for learning about life: if you explore a phenomenon, then find what is funny in it, and the phenomenon will be revealed to you in its entirety. All this has nothing to do with professional humor and the desire to entertain the reading public.
About the language
Language cannot be good or bad... After all, language is only a mirror. The same mirror that it’s stupid to blame.
In a foreign language we lose eighty percent of our personality. We are losing the ability to joke and be ironic.
About loneliness
Nothing else, but loneliness is enough. Money, let’s say, I run out quickly, loneliness never...
I prefer to be alone, but next to someone...
About life
Do you know what is important in life? The main thing is that there is only one life. A minute passed and it was over. There won't be another...
"Life is Beautiful and amazing!" - as Comrade Mayakovsky exclaimed on the eve of suicide.
About money
Money means freedom, space, whims... Having money makes it so easy to endure poverty...
I counted the money without taking my hand out of my pocket.
About the inferiority complex
The inferiority complex is a huge force. It’s just unclear - destructive or creative...
All normal people have complexes, only degenerates and skiers do not have them.
About Russia
In Tsarist Russia, vices took people to the bottom. In Soviet Russia there are advantages...
The nightmare of Stalinism is not even that millions died. The nightmare of Stalinism is that an entire nation was corrupted. Wives betrayed their husbands. The children cursed their parents.
About miscellaneous
Selfless lies are not lies, they are poetry.
I regret some of my statements. Some are ready to be tattooed on their chests...
I looked at the empty suitcase. At the bottom is Karl Marx. On the lid is Brodsky. And between them is lost, priceless, the only life.
What a joy it is to say what you think! What a torment it is to think about what you are saying!
They don’t ask God for more.
Anti-Semitism is only a special case of evil; I have never in my life met a person who was an anti-Semite, but in all other respects was no different from normal people.
Jazz is us in our best hours. That is, when elation, fearlessness and frankness coexist within us...
I was sick for three days, and it had a wonderful effect on my health.
Tourism is the life activity of the idle.
Any signature wants to be considered an autograph.
Dovlatov has been gone for almost thirty years, but people continue to read him. Probably because it looks like conversation with a good person . But it’s not easy these days to talk to a good person, especially a writer.
Quotes about Dovlatov
- I. Brodsky: His stories rely most of all on the rhythm of the phrase; at the cadence of the author's speech. They are written like poems: the plot in them is of secondary importance, it is only a pretext for speech. It's more singing than storytelling.
- A. Genis: Dovlatov also has an excess of skill. In his sentence, the words spin until they click into place with an almost audible click. But then you can’t shake them out of there.
- P. Weil: Sergei really wanted a mass reader and understood that what he needed was a sob next to a laugh. Here, perhaps, is the only point where Dovlatov compromised on taste. Otherwise, he was intact and practically invulnerable.
- P. Weil, A. Genis: Dovlatov is like a chervonets: everyone likes him.
