Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.

It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments.

What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning.

My friends, God is necessary for me if only because he is the one being who can be loved eternally.

You must accept it as it is, and hence accept all consequences. A wall is indeed a wall.