But a man only needs to be absent, even if only lying in the next room, and you feel at once that you are unprotected.

The words, 'I am dying,' you say lightly, by rote, without believing them, and only after you have said them do you realize what they mean.

She ought to have realized that his love could not be prompted by her spiritual qualities alone when there was not a trace in her of the only spiritual quality he recognized: the ability to suffer and feel compassion.

In revenge, He made me fall madly in love with you, and I bless that minute of my suffering.

I am a wicked, crude, useless person; I'm nothing.

These people were never happy or sad without making a laugh out of it.

As a rule, the servants, from saturnine Stepan on down, never stayed long.

I never expected such a fearful blow from such a quarter.

The Grasshopper