"To live one must have something to hang on to... In the provinces only the body works, not the spirit."

- Chekhov's Notebooks about Three Sisters

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"[Chekhov] feared an exaggeration [of military people] which would produce a caricature of provincial life, that the military men would be turned into the usual heel clickers with jangling spurs and not be presented as simple, pleasant, good people dressed in worn, and not theatrical, uniforms without any theatrical adjustments, raised shoulders, rude behavior, et cetera.

'There's none of that,' he argued rather heatedly, 'military personnel have changed, they have become more cultured, many of them have even begun to realize that in peacetime they should bring culture with them into remote backwaters."

- Stanislavsky about Chekhov and Three Sisters