Ilya Ilf > Quotes

“Он любил и страдал. Он любил деньги и страдал от их недостатка.”
― Ilia Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Время, которое мы имеем, - это деньги, которых мы не имеем.”
― Ilia Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“- Кто, по-вашему, этот мощный старик? Это - гигант мысли, отец русской демократии и особа, приближенная к императору.”
― Ilia Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Вы ни пьете, ни курите, девушками не увлекаетесь... Зачем Вам деньги? Вы же не умеете их тратить.”
― Илья Ильф, The Twelve Chairs

“Здесь Паша Эмильевич, обладавший сверхъестественным чутьем, понял, что сейчас его будут бить, может быть, даже ногами.”
― Илья Ильф, The Twelve Chairs

“А может тебе ещё дать ключ от квартиры, где деньги лежат?”
― Илья Ильф, The Twelve Chairs

“Всеми фибрами своего чемодана он стремился за границу”
― Илья Ильф

“Americans don't like to waste time on stupid things, for example, on the torturous process of coming up with names for their towns. And really, why strain yourself when so many wonderful names already exist in the world?

The entrance to the town of Moscow is shown in the photograph. That's right, an absolutely authentic Moscow, just in the state of Ohio, not in the USSR in Moscow province.

There's another Moscow in some other state, and yet another Moscow in a third state. On the whole, every state has the absolute right to have its very own Moscow.”
― Ilya Ilf, Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers

“Остап со вчерашнего дня еще ничего не ел. Поэтому красноречие его было необыкновенно.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“- А теперь действовать, действовать и действовать! - сказал Остап, понизив голос до степени полной нелегальности.”
― Ilia Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“The way people used to kiss before the age of historical materialism.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Let's put it to a vote. Shall the ballots be open or secret?"

"We don't need Soviet-style voting," Charushnikov said, offended. "Let's vote the honest way, the European way: secret ballots.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“So what was in this building before historical materialism?'

'Before what?'

'You know, back then, under the old regime?'

'Oh. Under the old regime my master lived here.'

'A bourgeois?'

'You're a bourgeois yourself! He wasn't a bourgeois. He was a marshal of the nobility.'

'So he was a proletarian, then?'

'You're a proletarian yourself! I told you loud and clear, a marshal.'

The conversation with the clever dvornik with a vague understanding of the class structure of society would have lasted god knows how long if the young man hadn't made a decisive move.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Everyone drank to popular education and to the irrigation of Uzbekistan.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Я не могу питаться вегетарианскими сосисками”
― Ilf and Petrov

“She was, after all, a mattress owner and understood the subtleties of life.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Жизнь страны менялась с каждым столетием. Менялась одежда, совершенствовалось оружие, были усмирены картофельные бунты. Люди научились брить бороды. Полетел первый воздушный шар. Были изобретены железные близнецы пароход и паровоз. Затрубили автомашины.
А дорога осталась такой же, какой была при Соловье разбойнике.”
― Ilya Ilf, Золотой теленок

“Кто скажет, что это девочка, пусть первый бросит в меня камень!”
― Илья Ильф, The Twelve Chairs

“Now tell me the truth, Lapsus, why do you write about things you've never seen before in your life? Things you don't have the slightest idea about? Why is 'peignoir' a ball gown in your poem 'Canton'? Why?”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“He was only thirty-eight. His body was clean, well-fed, and benign. He had all his teeth. A fresh Armenian joke stirred in his head like a child in its mother's womb. He thought life was wonderful.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“заграница — это миф о загробной жизни. Кто туда попадает, тот не возвращается.”
― Ilya Ilf, Золотой теленок

“Финансовая пропасть-самая глубокая из всех пропастей, в нее можно падать всю жизнь.”
― Ilya Ilf, Золотой телёнок

“The word "America" has well-developed grandiose associations for a Soviet person, for whom it refers to a country of skyscrapers, where day and night one hears the unceasing thunder of surface and underground trains, the hellish roar of automobile horns, and the continuous despairing screams of stockbrokers rushing through the skyscrapers waving their ever-falling shares.”
― Ilya Ilf, Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers

“This (San Francisco) is the most beautiful city in America, Probably because it looks nothing like America”
― Ilya Ilf, Yevgeni Petrov

“A Spaniard and a Pole worked in the barbershop where we got our hair cut. An Italian shined our shoes. A Croat washed our car. This was America.”
― Ilya Ilf, Yevgeni Petrov

“Pushkin wrote Turkish poems and he was never in Turkey.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Podkolyosin asked tragically, "Why are you keeping quiet, like the League of Nations?”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Clotilde stammered. "Why didn't you hang yourself? You were just saying that art is eternal. I destroyed your eternal art. Why are you still alive, man?"

"What's eternal is eternal, but I still have to get my commissions done on time," said Vasya. "What did you think?"

Vasya was just an everyday hack sculptor of average talent. And Clothilde was reading too much Schiller.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs

“Investigating Koreiko's case might take a long time," said Ostap. "God only knows how long. And since there is no God, nobody knows. We are in a terrible bind.”
― Ilya Ilf, Золотой теленок

“No one likes us, unless you count Criminal Investigations, which also doesn't like us.”
― Ilya Ilf, The Twelve Chairs