Anna Karenina

Levin had been married for three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected. At every step he found disenchantment with his old dream and a new, unexpected enchantment. He was happy, but having entered upon family life he saw at every step that it was not what he had imagined. At every step he felt like a man who, after having admired a little boat going smoothly and happily on a lake, then got into this boat. He saw that it was not enough to sit straight without rocking; he also had to keep in mind, not forgetting for a minute, where he was going, that there was water underneath, that he had to row and his unaccustomed hands hurt, that it was easy only to look at, but doing it, while very joyful, was also very difficult.

As a bachelor, seeing the married life of others, their trifling cares, quarrels, jealousy, he used to smile scornfully to himself. In his own future married life, he was convinced, there not only could be nothing like that, but even all its external forms, it seemed to him, were bound to be in every way completely unlike other people's lives. And suddenly, instead of that, his life with his wife did not form itself in any special way, but was, on the contrary, formed entirely of those insignificant trifles he had scorned so much before, but which now, against his will, acquired an extraordinary and irrefutable significance. And Levin saw that to arrange all those trifles was by no means as easy as it had seemed to him before.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

All that night and morning Levin had lived completely unconsciously, and felt himself completely removed from the conditions of material existence. He had not eaten for a whole day, he had not slept for two nights, had spent several hours half-dressed and exposed to the frosty air, and he felt not only better than ever, but completely independent of his body: he moved without any effort of his muscles, and felt capable of anything. He was sure he could fly upwards or lift the corner of a house, if need be. He spent the rest of the time walking about the streets, every other minute consulting his watch, and gazing about him.

And what he saw then, he never saw again. He was especially moved by children going to school, the grey-blue pigeons that flew down from the roof to the pavement, and the white rolls sprinkled with flour that some invisible hand had set out. These rolls, the pigeons and the two boys were unearthly beings. All this happened at the same time: a boy ran up to a pigeon and, smiling, looked at Levin; the pigeon flapped its wings and fluttered off, sparkling in the sun amidst the air trembling with snowdust, while the smell fo baked bread wafted from the window as the rolls appeared in it. All this together was so extraordinarily good that Levin laughed and wept from joy.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

Levin had often noticed in arguments between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, an enormous number of logical subtleties and words, the arguers would finally come to the awareness that what they had spent so long struggling to prove to each other had been known to them long, long before, from the beginning of the argument, but that they loved different things and therefore did not want to name what they loved, so as not to be challenged. He had often felt that sometimes during an argument you would understand what your opponent loves, and suddenly come to love the same thing yourself, and agree all at once, and then all reasonings would fall away as superfluous; and sometimes it was the other way round: you would finally say what you yourself love, for the sake of which you are inventing your reasonings, and if you happened to say it well and sincerely, the opponent would suddenly agree and stop arguing

Quoted on November 7, 2012

True, as he talked with the Muzhiks, explaining all the advantages of the undertaking to them, Levin often felt that they were listening only to the music of his voice and knew firmly that, whatever he might say, they were not going to let him deceive them. He felt it especially when he talked with the smartest of the peasants, Rezunov, and noticed that play in his eyes which clearly showed both mockery of him and the firm conviction that, if anyone was going to be deceived, it was not he, Rezunov.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

He talked with her involuntarily in his habitual tone, which was a mockery of those who would talk that way seriously. And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

He felt he was himself and did not want to be otherwise. He only wanted to be better than he had been before.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

And so the liberal tendency became a habit with Stepan Arkadyich, and he liked his newspaper, as he liked a cigar after dinner, for the slight haze it produced in his head.

Quoted on November 7, 2012

[Levin thinking over the birth of his new baby, and watching it sneeze:]
What he felt for this small being was not at all what he had expected. There was nothing happy or joyful in this feeling; on the contrary, there was a new tormenting fear. There was an awareness of a new region of vulnerability. And this awareness was so tormenting at first, the fear lest this helpless being should suffer was so strong, that because of it he scarcely noticed the strange feeling of senseless joy and even pride he had experienced when the baby sneezed.

Quoted on May 20, 2012

Only then did he understand clearly for the first time what he had not understood when he had led her out of the church after the wedding. He understood not only that she was close to him, but that she no longer knew where she ended and he began. He understood it by the painful feeling of being split which he experienced at that moment. He was offended at first, but in that same instant he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was him. In the first moment he felt like a man who, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, turns with vexation and a desire for revenge to find out who did it, and realizes that he has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with and he must endure and ease the pain.

Quoted on October 4, 2011

Vronsky, meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires.

Quoted on October 4, 2011

The prince frowned and kept coughing as he listened to the doctor. He, as a man who had seen life and was neither stupid nor sick, did not believe in medicine, and in his soul he was angry at this whole comedy, the more so in that he was almost the only one who fully understood the cause of Kitty's illness.

Quoted on January 22, 2010

After the doctor's departure, Sergei Ivanovich expressed a wish to go to the river with a fishing rod. He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.

Quoted on January 22, 2010

How many times during his eight years of happy life with his wife, looking at other people's unfaithful wives and deceived husbands, had Alexei Alexandrovich said to himself: 'How can one let it come to that? How can one not undo this ugly situation?' But now, when the disaster had fallen on his head, he not only did not think of how to undo the situation, but did not want to know about it at all --- did not want to know precisely because it was too terrible, too unnatural.

Quoted on January 22, 2010

Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidentally peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is. So it seemed to Vronsky.

Quoted on January 22, 2010

They finished another swath and another. They went through long swaths, short swaths, with bad grass, with good grass. Levin lost all awareness of time and had no idea whether it was late or early. A change now began to take place in his work which gave him enormous pleasure. In the midst of his work moments came to him when he forgot what he was doing and began to feel light, and in those moments his swath came out as even and good as Titus's. But as soon as he remembered what he was doing and started trying to do better, he at once felt how hard the work was and the swath came out badly.

Quoted on January 22, 2010

And here is my opinion for you. Women are the main stumbling block in a man's activity. It's hard to love a woman and do anything. For this there exists one means of loving conveniently, without hindrance - that is marriage. How can I tell you, how can I tell you what I'm thinking,' said Serpukhovsky, who liked comparisons, 'wait, wait! Yes, it's as if you're carrying a burden, and doing something with your hands is only possible if the burden is tied to your back - and that is marriage.'

Quoted on January 22, 2010

It's true what papa says, that when we were being brought up there was one extreme - we were kept in the attic, while the parents lived on the first floor; now it's the opposite - the parents go to the store-room and the children to the first floor. Parents mustn't have any life now, everything's given to the children.

Quoted on January 22, 2010