Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: "Leave behind all hope, you who enter here."

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind "for every man must have somewhere to turn.

Russians alone are able to combine so many opposites in themselves at one and the same time.

One can fall in love and still hate.

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.