"I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your judgments about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not judge at all.

"I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and we parted forever. The train was already in motion."

- from "On Love"

Everything that is said in [Chekhov's] works about the fate of the world and of people is in essence so simple that it might enter the head of any ordinary person...But Chekhov expressed this simple wisdom in words so magically beautiful and, in their beauty, so comforting, that everyone was left with the impression that somehow he had been reassured about something...For all these sufferers of life the creations of Chekhov acted as a sudden revivifying flood of tears which are evoked by deep suffering, but which, after flowing, relieve the soul, lighten sorrow, and reconcile one with the most inconsolable misery.
-- found by Emily, source unknown