Today, this strikes me as terrible reasoning. I now understand that love is a rare and valuable thing, and you don’t get to choose its object. You just go around getting hung up on the all the least convenient things—and if the only obstacle in your way is a little extra work, then that’s the wonderful gift right there.
from The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
“It’s unfortunate that what people believe to be the most important things about themselves, their innermost truths and secrets – the real you or me – that we dish up when somebody looks sympathetic, is very likely to be the driveling nonsense that we generally have enough brains to forget about. The real you or me that we conceal because we think people won’t accept it is slop – and why should anybody want it?”