Mikhail Bulgakov Quotes

I came down to the living room one day and my wife was standing in the living room. It wasn't an illusion. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. The moment I saw her, she vanished.

And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows

[William Butler] Yeats has the phrase Hodos Chameliontos, chameleon-like, in that you don't know where the beginning or the middle or the end is, so it's an unrelieved hallucination, because you don't know where you're coming in and you don't know where you're going out. It ends, you're going into the hallucination, or maybe coming out of it, I don't know.

Her body was wrapped in shadows like moth wings, like rose-petals.

You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.

You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all; you are a mere dream

Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing i ever saw in my life!

Before me floats an image, man or shade, / Shade more than man, more image than a shade.

I think it's all lovely hallucination but I love it sorta.

I see things, that's all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.

It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.

Magic things are fond of deceptions.

Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story.

I had a dream, which was not at all a dream.

She gives the night its dreams.

Our shadows are taller than ourselves.

No one has ever been able to discover how they [cats] make this subtle sound, and what is more, no one ever will. It is a secret that has endured from the very beginning of the time of cats and will never be revealed.

Sometimes I go for days without speaking to a soul. I think, “I should make that call", but I put it off. Because there’s something pleasurable about not talking. But then I love talking, so it’s not that. But sometimes it can be nice. It’s not like I sit here philosophizing, because I’ve no talent for that. It’s just this thing about silence that’s so wonderful.

The rest, is silence.

For in and out, above, about, below, 'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Played in a Box whose Candle is the Sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

i never learned anything while i was talking.

Why can't I believe? she asked the darkness. Behind her eyelids she saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned.It gazed at her. She gazed at it. "You are the effect of a carefully calibrated blend of plant toxins," she told it.Then she fell asleep.

The hallucination of being a separate ego will not stand up to biological tests.