A corner draft fluttered the flame And the white fever of temptation Upswept its angel wings that cast A cruciform shadow.
Boris PasternakI don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.
Boris PasternakYou and I, it's as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.
Boris PasternakAbout dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me itยดs just the contrary. Often itยดs something you paid no attention to at the time -- a vague thought that you didnยดt bother to think out to the end, words spoken without feeling and which passed unnoticed -- these are the things that return at night, clothed in flesh and blood, and they become the subjects of dreams, as if to make up for having been ignored during waking hours.
Boris PasternakEverything established, settled, everything to do with home and order and the common ground, has crumbled into dust and has been swept away in the general upheaval and reorganization of the whole of society. The whole human way of life has been destroyed and ruined. All that's left is the bare, shivering human soul, stripped to the last shred, the naked force of the human psyche for which nothing has changed because it was always cold and shivering and reaching out to its nearest neighbor, as cold and lonely as itself.
Boris Pasternak