The Karamazov Brothers (Oxford World's Classics)

Filial love, if the father is not deserving of it, is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be born of nothing, God alone can create something out of nothing.

If a man carries many such memories with him, they will keep him safe throughout his life. And even if only one such memory stays in our hearts, it may prove to be our salvation one day.

the more absurd the approach, the closer one gets to the crux of the matter. Clarity in absurdity. Absurdity is direct and guileless, whereas the intellect is evasive and illusive. The intellect is a blackguard, but absurdity is undeviating and honourable.

he was already to some extent a youth of our times—in other words, naturally honest, insisting on truth, seeking it and believing in it, and, once believing, demanding instant commitment to it with all the strength of his soul and wanting to rush off and perform great deeds, sacrificing all, if necessary even life itself.

Let her, if she will, forgive him her own suffering, her own extreme anguish as a mother, but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her mutilated child; even if the child himself forgives, she has no right! And if that is so, if the right to forgive does not exist, then where is harmony?

“Mostly you have to look after people like you do children, and some you have to look after like patients in hospital”…’

‘You’re like all of them,’ concluded Alyosha, ‘that is, you’re like a lot of people, only you don’t have to be like them, like everyone, that’s all.’ ‘Even in spite of the fact that everyone’s like that?’

‘I think that if the devil didn’t exist and if man has created him, then he has created him in his own image and likeness.’

There is a kind of grief among the common people that is mute and long-suffering, that turns inwards and is silent. But there is also a convulsive grief which will sometimes break out into tears and turn to keening. This is found particularly in women. It is no easier to bear than the silent grief. For keening soothes only in that it inflames and w