“This was how I was dealing with everyone and everything lately, taking the good when it came, and the bad the same way, knowing each would pass in its own time.”

“- You take evil for good. It's a passing crisis. It's the result of your illness, perhaps.- You do despise me! It's simply that I don't want to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness.- Why do evil?- So that everything will be destroyed. Oh, how nice it would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a lot of harm. I would do it for a long while secretly and then suddenly everyone would find out. Everyone will stand around and point their fingers at me and I will look at them all. That would be awfully nice.”

“Yes, life is hard, but it's not a bad way to pass the time. When all is said and done, I recommend it.”

“Everyone has their own personality, its own character, and if he respects that, everything would finally fall over for good only.”

“It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.”

“I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.”