A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to be conscious of one's own digestion is a sure way to upset the stomach. Consciousness is a poison when we apply it to ourselves. Consciousness is a light directed outward. it's like the headlights on a locomotive-turn them inward and you'd have a crash. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
A literary creation can appeal to us in all sorts of ways-by its theme, subject, situations, characters. But above all it appeals to us by the presence in it of art. It is the presence of art in Crime and Punishment that moves us deeply rather than the story of Raskolnikov's crime. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
And if he were really to do good he would have needed in addition to his principles, a heart capable of violating them - a heart which knows only of particular not of general cases and which achieves greatness in little actions. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
And now listen carefully. You in others-this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life-your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on that is called your memory? This will be you-the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
And then the two basic ideals of modern man- without them he is unthinkable- the idea of free personality and the idea of life as sacrafice (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart? (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
As before the collapse, the setting sun brushed the tiles, brought out the warm brown glow on the wallpaper, and hung the shadow of the birch on the wall as if it were a woman's scarf. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
But the division in him was a sorrow and a torment, and he became accustomed to it only as one gets used to an unhealed and frequently reopened wound. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
Farewell, my great one, my own, farewell, my pride, farewell, my swift, deep, dear river, how I loved your daylong splashing, how I loved to plunge into your cold waves. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed it's beauty to them. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
I have the impression that if he didn't complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
It?s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. Is shows he isn?t a type. If he were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can?t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality. (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")
Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion! (Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago")