Smerdyakov

“For youth, the moon is a promise of all those tremendous things which await it, for older people a memento that the promise was never kept, a reminder of all that broke and went to pieces...
And what is moonshine? Secondhand sunshine. Diluted, counterfeit.”
― Hjalmar Söderberg, Doctor Glas

“And this was the end of my first friendship with one of that innumerable company of people who are foreigners in their own country, but who are in reality its finest sons....”
― Maxim Gorky, My Childhood

“Why love the healthy, confident, proud and happy?They don't need it. They take love as their rightful due, as the duty owed to them, they accept it indifferently and arrogantly. Other people's devotion is just another gift to them, a clasp to wear in the hair, a bangle for the wrist, not the whole meaning and happiness of their lives. Love can truly help only those not favoured by fate, the distressed and disadvantaged, those who are less than confident and not beautiful, the meek-minded. When love is given to them it makes up for what life has taken away. They alone know how to love and be loved in the right way, humbly and with gratitude.”
― Stefan Zweig

“I believe in the lust of the flesh and the incurable desolation of the soul.”
― Hjalmar Söderberg, Gertrud