“I can’t help coming here tomorrow. I’m a dreamer; I have so little real life that I regard such moments as this one, now, to be so rare that I can’t help repeating these moments in my dreams. I will dream of you all night, for an entire week, all year long. I will come here tomorrow without fail, exactly here, to this very spot, exactly at this time, and I’ll be happy as I recall what happened yesterday. This place is already dear to me. I already have two or three such places in Petersburg. Once I even shed tears, because of a memory, like you”

“Now, dear Nastenka, when we have come together again after such a lengthy separation – because I have known you for a long time, Nastenka, because I have long been searching for someone, and that is a sign that I was looking precisely for you and that we were fated to meet now – now in my head thousands of valves have opened and I must set loose this river of words, or I will choke to death.”

“Quiet reigns in the little room; solitude and indolence caress the imagination; it faintly catches fire, it is faintly brought to the boil, like the water in the coffeepot of old Matryona, who placidly potters about next door in the kitchen, as she makes her cook’s coffee. […] His imagination is once again incited, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new enchanting life with its glistening vistas flashes before him. A new dream is new happiness! A new dose of exquisite, voluptuous poison! Oh, what does real life have to offer him!”

“[…] he desires nothing, because he is above desire, because he has everything, because he is sated, because he himself is the artist of his life and he creates it for himself every hour to suit his latest whim”

“Why do whole sleepless nights pass by like a single instant in inexhaustible merriment and happiness, and when the dawn’s rosy ray shines through the windows and the daybreak illumines the gloomy room with its dubious fantastic light, such as we have in Petersburg, why does our dreamer, exhausted and weary, throw himself on his bed and fall asleep, his tormented and overwhelmed spirit trembling with ecstasy, while his heart aches with a sweet agony”

“You know, we thank some people for merely living at the same time as we do. I thank you for the fact that I met you, that I will remember you for all my life!”

“May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and serene, may you be blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness that you gave to another lonely, grateful heart!
My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?”