“But that's everything, you know, it's a priceless diamond, it's a maiden's treasure, love — why, a man would be ready to give his soul, to face death to gain that love.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I have hundreds of such reminiscences; but at times someone stands out from the hundred and oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write it down I should get rid of it. Why not try?”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I write only for myself, and I wish to declare once and for all that if I write as though as I were addressing readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that form.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Man likes to make roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? Tell me that!”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“For what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ?”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her flaws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

“But I am fairly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky