Anna Karenina

Some of my favorite quotes from Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, 

translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky 

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

"He was on familiar terms with everyone with whom he drank champagne, and he drank champagne with everyone"

"The place where she stood seemed to him unapproachably holy, and there was a moment when he almost went away-- he was so filled with awe... He stepped down, trying not to look at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking."

"Yes, brother, women -- that's the pivot on which everything turns."

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade."

"Anna smiled, as one smiles at the weaknesses of people one loves"

"'I think,' said Anna, toying with the glove she had taken off, 'I think... If there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.'"

"She understood that you only have to forget yourself and love others and you would be calm, happy and beautiful"

"I can only live by my heart, and you live by the rules. I loved you simply, but you probably only so as to save me, to teach me!"

"He could not have been mistaken. There were no other eyes in the world like those. There was no other being in the world capable of concentrating for him all the light and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty."

"Women are the main stumbling block in a man's activity. It's hard to love a woman and do anything."

"It is possible to save a person who does not want to perish. But if the whole nature is so corrupt, so perverted, that perdition itself looks like salvation, what can be done?"

"It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires."

"She obviously could see that her explanation would not make anything understood, but, knowing that her speech was pleasant and her hands were beautiful, she went on explaining." 

"All that day she had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing."

"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be."

"He could still bring her back, but she reached the door, he remained silent, and only the rustle of the turning page was heard." 

All images from Bernard Shaw's Anna Karenina (1997)