“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

“The story of Ivan Ilyich life was of the simplest, most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Tolstoy defines living an ordinary life as terrible - I really do have to agree!”

“Ivan Ilych had been a colleague of the gentlemen present and was liked by them all. He had been ill for some weeks with an illness said to be incurable. His post had been kept open for him, but there had been conjectures that in case of his death Alexeev might receive his appointment, and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would succeed Alexeev. So on receiving the news of Ivan Ilych's death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves or their acquaintances.”

“It was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. Human decisions are terribly simple.”

“I now find the most marvelous things in the everyday, the ordinary, the common, the simple and tangible.”

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”