“... in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.”

“In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.”

“I hope death will be a great happiness, a happiness as great as that of love, fulfilled love”

“Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love and they blossom when we love the ones we marry. ”

“A happy marriage- a love match- is something overwhelming, and overpowering.”

“Tucked inside the moments of this great sadness - this feeling of being punctured, scrambling and stricken - were also moments of the brightest, most swollen and logic shattering happiness I've ever experienced. One moment would be a wall of happiness so tall it could not be scaled; the next felt like falling into a pit of sadness that had no bottom. I realized you could not have one without the other, that this great capacity to love and be happy can be experienced only with this great risk of having happiness taken from you - to tremble, always, on the edge of loss.”