“That's what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.”

“There was nothing ugly in the small, unprepossessing figure of this emancipated woman, but the expression on her face made a bad impression on the viewer. One felt inclined to ask: "What's the matter? Are you hungry? Bored? Afraid? Why so tense?" Just like Sitnikov, she was always anxious. She spoke and moved in a rather casual, though awkward,manner: she obviously considered herself a good-natured, simple creature; at the same time, no matter what she did, it always seemed that she didn't want to be doing that. Everything she did appeared to be done on purpose, as children say, that is, neither simply nor naturally.”

“Yes," he said, without looking at anyone; "it's a misfortune to live five years in the country like this, far from the mighty intellects! You turn into a fool directly. You may try not to forget what you've been taught, but -in a snap!- they'll prove all that's rubbish, and tell you that sensible men have nothing more to do with such foolishness, and that you, if you please, are an antiquated old fogey. What's to be done? Young people, of course, are cleverer than we are!”

“Every man hangs by a thread, any minute the abyss may open under his feet, and yet he must go and invent for himself all kinds of troubles and spoil his life.”

“Run along, my friend, Andrei Petrovitch, put a hat on your learned head, and let us go where our eyes lead us. Our eyes are young--they may lead us far.”

“I burnt as in a fire in her presence ... but what did I care to know what the fire was in which I burned and melted--it was enough that it was sweet to burn and melt.”

“What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.”