“A new degree of anger came over him. What did it all matter? What did it matter if the mother talked Polish and cried in labour, if this child were stiff with resistance, and crying?Why take it to heart?Let the mother cry in labour, let the child cry in resistance, since they would do so. Why should he fight against it, why resist? Let it be, if it were so. Let them be as they were, if they insisted.”

“If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is- a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.”

“Let us cry for the spilt milk, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the spilt milk, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons.”

“...His words were barely audible. That was all right; they weren’t intended for anyone except the woman who wasn’t there. “I’m so sorry... for everything... why? ... why did you leave me?” As the tears coated his cheeks he told himself, Anthony Rawlings doesn’t cry. He doesn’t apologize, and he doesn’t cry...”

“Don't cry pretty girl. Who you are is why you're so good at everything. You won't let yourself be otherwise. And thats what fascinates me." Duke- Lament”

“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?" Mitya asks, flying past them at a great clip."The wee one, the driver answers, "it's the wee one crying." And Mitya is struck that he has said it in his own peasant way: "the wee one," and not "the baby." And he likes it that the peasant has said "wee one": there seems to be more pity in it."But why is it crying?" Mitya insists, as if he were foolish, "why are its little arms bare, why don't they wrap it up?""The wee one's cold, its clothes are frozen, they don't keep it warm.""But why is it so? Why?" foolsih Mitya would not leave off."They're poor, burnt out, they've got no bread, they're begging for their burnt-down place.""No, no," Mitya still seems not to understand, "tell me: why are these burnt-out mothers standing here, why are the people poor, why is the wee one poor, why is the steppe bare, why don't they embrace and kiss, why don't they sing joyful songs, why are they blackened with such black misery, why don't they feed the wee one?"And he feels within himself that, though his questions have no reason or sense, he still certainly wants to ask in just that way, and he should ask in just that way. And he also feels a tenderness such as he has never known before surging up in his heart, he wants to weep, he wants to do something for them all, so that the wee one will no longer cry, so that the blackened, dried-up mother of the wee one will not cry either, so that there will be no more tears in anyone from that moment on, and it must be done at once, at once, without delay and despite everything, with all his Karamazov unrestraint.”