“How hollow to have no secrets left; you shake yourself and nothing rattles. You're boneless as an anemone.”

“How sad it must be for you to be nothing more than a hollow statue, to have your tomb preserved and your story forgotten.”

“If you're going to maintain any kind of self-respect, you're going to have to keep secrets from yourself.”

“You ask yourself: where are your dreams now? And you shake your head and say how swiftly the years fly by! And you ask yourself again: what have you done with your best years, then? Where have you buried the best days of your life? Have you lived or not? Look, you tell yourself, look how cold the world is becoming. The years will pass and after them will come grim loneliness, and old age, quaking on its stick, and after them misery and despair. Your fantasy world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die, falling away like the yellow leaves from the trees… Ah, Nastenka! Will it not be miserable to be left alone, utterly alone, and have nothing even to regret — nothing, not a single thing… because everything I have lost was nothing, stupid, a round zero, all dreaming and no more!”

“When you have nothing left to lose. When there’s nothing left to gain. You find yourself at the edge of the world, wishing nothing would have changed,” I read and instantly got a twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach.“All you can do is jump.”

“You're cold, Virginia. How have you let yourself become so cold?”