How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line)
Quote #1
Tuzenbach: I would have left a woman like that a long time ago, but he just hangs on and complains about her. (1.18)
Tuzenbach is practical; Vershinin is romantic. This explains the discrepancy in women's attraction to them—and also, perhaps, in their own views on marriage.
Quote #2
Vershinin: Yes, when they called me the lovesick major, I was young and I was in love. Now I'm not. (1.88)
Vershinin is very forward with the sisters about his marital misery. Might he already have his eye on Masha at this point? Or is he just commenting on the blight of love passing with time?
Quote #3
Chebutykin: You just said, Baron, that people in the future will think of our life as a high point, but people nowadays are still pretty low. (Stands up.) Look how low I am. But of course you make me feel better by calling my life a high point. (1.113)
Chebutykin dismisses the baron's idealism with a joke about his height. The doctor may act tough, but his recurring alcoholism and sad little quips like this indicate that he's just as dissatisfied as the others.
Quote #4
Andrey: Were you ever in Moscow?
Ferapont: Nope. Things didn't work out that way. (2.28-29)
The old servants Ferapont and Anfisa have the lowest expectations of life—and, yet, the highest satisfaction. Things didn't work out, but why complain about it? They worked out another way!
Quote #5
Masha: Either you know the reason you're alive, or nothing makes any difference. (2.84)
Complete understanding of the universe (does it have to do with #42?), or no happiness at all? That's a tall order, Masha.
Quote #6
Vershinin: We can never be happy. We only want to be happy. (2.112)
Pretty much a philosophical staple in Chekhov: human beings are just masses of perpetual longing.
Quote #7
Tuzenbach: You're sad, you're unhappy with life—oh, come away with me, let's go off and work together. (3.79)
Under Tuzenbach's influence, Irina begins to reformulate (and significantly scale back) her expectations for the future and eventually consents to follow his plan. After his death, she has to change her plans again. Life in a Chekhov play is constant readjustment.
Quote #8
Masha: When you only get your happiness in bits and pieces and then lose it anyway, like me, you begin to get bitter about it. You don't care what you say anymore. (Touches her breast.) I'm full of anger inside. (4.59)
Masha has lost her lover, Vershinin, and faces a lifetime of boredom with her husband, Kulygin. It's kind of interesting to think about Natasha through a similar lens. Though maybe Chekhov wouldn't portray her as thinking quite so hard about it.
Quote #9
Irina: I've never been in love. I used to dream about love, I used to dream about it all the time, but now my soul is like a piano that's locked up and the key's lost. (4.97)
Poor Irina. She focuses all of her hopes on love and on fulfilling work—and finds neither of them by the end of the play.