# The most famous quotes from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

"Manuscripts don't burn", "Never ask for anything" and second-grade sturgeon: lines from Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita that have long become proverbial in Russian, with who says them.

- 58 votes · 15 items
- Jul 26, 2024 · piterwordsmith
- https://even.best/en/l/5292/the-most-famous-quotes-from-bulgakov-s-the-master-and-margarita

## Top 15

1. **Manuscripts don't burn.** (8 · ▲8 ▼0) — Said by Woland.
2. **Never ask for anything! Never, and above all from those more powerful than you. They will offer and give everything themselves!** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Said by Woland.
3. **A brick will never fall on anyone's head out of the blue.** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Said by Woland.
4. **What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all shadows disappeared from it?** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Woland to Levi Matthew.
5. **Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that's the trick!** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — Said by Woland.
6. **To each will be given according to his faith.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Said by Woland.
7. **Love leapt out in front of us like a murderer leaping out of the ground in an alley, and struck us both at once!** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Said by the Master.
8. **There is only one degree of freshness: the first, which is also the last. If sturgeon is of the second freshness, it means it is rotten!** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Said by Woland.
9. **Gods, my gods! How sad the evening earth is!** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — The narrator.
10. **…ordinary people… on the whole they resemble the old ones… only the housing problem has spoiled them…** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Woland on Muscovites, at the Variety show.
11. **Telling the truth is easy and pleasant.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Yeshua Ha-Notsri to Pilate.
12. **Never talk to strangers.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Title of the first chapter.
13. **In a white cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a cavalryman…** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Opening of the second chapter, about Pontius Pilate.
14. **Don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long since gone into the earth. And where it was spilt, grapes are already growing.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Koroviev to Margarita at Satan's ball.
15. **Who told you there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world? May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — The narrator.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.