There's only one way for an individual to remain upright, not to fall to pieces, not to sink into the mire of self-oblivionorself-contempt. That's calmly to turn away from everything, to say, "Enough!" and, folding one's useless arms across one's empty breast, to retain the ultimate, the sole attainable virtue, the virtue of recognizing one's own insignificance.

Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.

I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

Anyone who has crossed from the district of Bolkhov into that of Zhizdra will probably have been struck by the sharp difference between the natives of the provinces of Orel and Kaluga.