Translated material
New year - new meanness
Alexander Vampilov about eternal love, longing, happiness and creativity
The moon is an old bawd, and only pigs and idiots live without trouble in this world: “Gorky” offers the next issue of our regular column “Survival Instructions.” Today we have selected the most interesting statements by playwright Alexander Vampilov (1937–1972).About happiness
What exactly is happiness? For some it is peace of mind, for others it is material well-being. For others, both are inseparable. For a young man with imagination and emotions, this is living in a noisy city, where there is such a courtyard and a house: in the evening he pressed a button and the girl he loves runs out.
Life is wonderful when your shoes don’t squeeze you, your head doesn’t hurt, you haven’t been kicked out of work, you have money, girls are waiting for you.
— She is married to a professor.
- Is she happy?
- Do you think that she should also be happy? It is enough that she is married to a professor.
“We won’t be like other people: we’ll be happy.”
A happy person is always guilty of something. To many people he is guilty of the fact that he is happy.
About love
If you are going to love someone, learn to forgive first.
He was inexhaustible in inventing her virtues and petty charms.
You will swear eternal love and, for the sake of decency, quote something from the classics.
I love you, but at the same time I'm ready for something new.
He put her on the bus and ran after him for a long time (out of idleness).
He could only use love for credit.
About the relationship between men and women
Muse and housekeeper.
Melpomene turns into a scullery maid.
A beautiful woman, having chosen an ugly man, realizes that she is condescending to him, and throughout her life she reminds him of this.
A drunk man lies under the fence. Some women passing by take a closer look and sigh with relief.
The world consists of boring, uncultured suitors and handsome seducers.
She demands loyalty. This is her little weakness.
If in life everyone is looking for opposites, then his wife must be a genius of beauty, goodness, etc.
- Why do men go bald, but women don’t?
“I think this is nature’s attempt to restore justice.”
Vulgar village tricks: 1) “I’ll get married” and 2) “I’ll kill.”
About creativity
Poet. One cannot say about him “a slave of honor.” He is free from honor.
The twentieth century in art only parodies the nineteenth.
Life is beautiful and amazing,” said the poet and... shot himself.
I don’t know how talented people should write, but my stories are difficult for me.
A fly, annoying, like a novice author.
Today I am talented.
It is difficult for a poet to be born in the capital. Muscovites know everything from childhood. There are no thoughtful people in Moscow. All thoughtful people in Moscow are crushed by cars. Poets are born in the provinces, poets die in the capital.
Skeptic. He even read his poetry with disdain.
He who has no talent must be a hard worker.
A recidivist graphomaniac.
Writer. He knows everything, but cannot express anything, like a dog. The editor speaks for him.
Becoming a writer, poet, scientist is not only work, talent, a kind soul, etc. Almost the main thing is to decide on this apparently difficult path, make a firm decision and implement this decision. To have talent, desire, dreams is to have everything without having the main thing: a firm decision and big actions. This is a feat.
Poetry has always contradicted life.
No matter how hard literary critics try, they will never make Chekhov a dry and boring writer.
Pushkin was a shaggy madman. But he was a nobleman and was ashamed of his madness.
About alcohol
No matter what street a pub opens on, it’s a celebration on our street.
I didn’t want to drink, but out of politeness and respect for the owner I got drunk.
My soul is empty, like the decanter of an alcoholic. Everything was spent stupidly, binge-watching, scattered, confused. I hear the wind howling in my chest, as if in a chimney.
Hungover. Unfolds the newspaper in the morning:
- Take a look at what is happening in the sober world.
About sadness and despair
He felt at home there, but at home he felt bad.
He won't even make a drunkard.
Thank you for listening. I don’t have any interlocutors, all my friends are drinking buddies.
The mood is so lousy, as if 200 rubles had been taken out of my pocket.
The condition is as if there is a gun pressed to your temple.
About unpleasant people
Don't look for scoundrels. Mostly mean things are done by good people.
He looked unpleasant - he seemed like he would come up and ask for a loan.
A person who is painfully concerned about his health.
Her lack of intelligence was replaced by an excess of cunning.
This look can scare a child or freeze water.
No one knew that he was noble. At least he didn't give it away himself.
“We’ll call each other by common names, especially since we don’t respect each other,” he told him frankly.
Kind and affectionate, like a recovering patient.
Every person is a state, which is completely ruled by egoism.
Helplessly stupid. So stupid that he can't even hide it.
Humanity will give birth to approximately the same number of geniuses and famous killers. In recent centuries, this proportion has been disrupted and brilliant killers have appeared.
Everything on earth is shaping up like in a bad science fiction novel: physics, war, the end of the world.
New year - new meanness.
In this world, only pigs and idiots live without trouble.
A person still has to do something. Otherwise, his existence becomes meaningless and harmful.
About old age
They shout “forward, forward, quickly, quickly”: this is insincere - who wants to grow old?
“I’m funny just because I’m old.”
Forward to hypertension!
Old age is incurable.
I laugh at old age because I know: I won’t be old.
About the Moon
The moon is now an ordinary street lamp.
The old bawd - the moon - came out.
It was so ordinary that the moon, which was present at the same time, yawned and covered itself with a large and, probably, very warm cloud. Of course, she, who saw the meeting and saw how the gloomy employee of the divorce department declared his love, was bored.