“Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, ...”

“You see, wisdom does not come with grey hairs.”

“Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of...”

“A word aptly uttered or written cannot be cut away by an axe.”

“The human feelings, which had never been very deep in him, grew shallower every hour, and every day something more dropped away from the decrepit wreck.”

“To what nadir of paltriness , pettiness, and squalor a man can sink! How could he change so! But is this really true to life? ---It is, it's all true to life, for anything can happen to a man. Your...”

“I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by...”

“Its hard to say something about Pushkin to a person who doesnt know anything about him. Pushkin is a great poet. Napoleon is not as great as Pushkin. Bismarck compared to Pushkin is a nobody. And t...”

“Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.”

“The only time they ever throw anything away is when it's really and truly broken, and then they make a big deal about it. They save up all their bent pins and broken sewing needles and once a year ...”

“We were young. Everyone was young in those days. Thats the main complaint you hear from people who are getting old. You stop seeing young people. You begin to wonder if there are any left and wheth...”

“If only I had met Molly sooner, when it was still possible to choose one road rather than another. Before that bitch Musyne and that little turd Lola crimped my enthusiasm. But it was too late to s...”