Fyodor

Below is one of my favorite quotes. It’s a simple passage with a straightforward meaning but more importantly, it captures a feeling- and that’s what literature should do. I revisit it when I have trouble seeing past my temporary woes. It reminds me to take a step back and look at all that I’ve lived and the remarkable memories I’ve made, despite any current suffering or grief. And with that comes an indication of everything that is to come.

I hope you love this quote half as much as I do:

“Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honor or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are.”

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы)