“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.”

“...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...”

“One day he said, "I'll tell this townHow it feels to be an unfunny clown."And he told them all why he looked so sad,And he told them all why he felt so bad.He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,He told of Darkness in his soul,And after he finished his tale of woe,Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,They laughed until they shook the trees...And while the world laughed outside.Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.”

“Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.”

“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.”

“Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?""They're beanies.""They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.""But I'm not in Brooklyn.""But you're still a Brooklynite.""I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie.""You don't mean that, Carl.""Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.""Why?""When in Rome do as the Romans do.""Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly."This is the silliest conversation...”