Anna Karenina Quotes
"Still in the anxious frame of mind as she had been all that day, Anna took pleasure in arranging herself for the journey with great care.... took from her bag a paper knife and an English novel... Anna read and understood but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. She passed the paper knife over the windowpane then laid it's cool surface to her check... and almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight."
Pg. 115-116 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Anna reading on the train on the way back from first meeting Vronsky (On the train heading to Petersburg) Meaning - Paper knife is for cutting pages - Anna finds the book boring and prefers to be doing the things herself which is how a narcissist reads - The protagonist is like her husband which evokes guilty because of her feelings for Vronsky - She feels delight at the thought of pushing the knife to her cheek
"At Petersberg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person who attracted her attention was her husband. 'O my God why do his ears look like that?' she thought looking at his frigid and distinguished figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his round hat."
Pg. 120 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Anna just got off the Petersburg train and sees her husband Meaning - Conventional meaning - The ears haven't changed but her perspective has. Compares him to Vronsky and begins to see unappealing features in him - Whole story - She deliberately focuses on the unattractiveness on her husband. Of his flaws - incapable of love and basically an autonomous. So if she leaves him then it won't hurt him - How we see things/people differently depending on a mood - If we focus on the bad side of someone for long enough our view of them changes
"You won't believe how I've missed..." "And with a long pressure of her hand and a meaningful smile he put her in her carriage"
Pg. 123 Speaker: Karenin/Narrarator Context: Anna just got off the Petersburg train Meaning - speaking love is alien to Karenin - His language is law - Gets out this half sentence - Anna can imagine Karenina doesn't really care about her - self deception - because he struggles to express his love
"Aleksey Aleksandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his notions was an insult to one's wife... Aleksey Aleksandrovich was standing face to face with life with the possibility of his wife loving someone else... incomprehensible because it was life itself. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that he lived in... For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else and he was horrified at it."
Pg. 162-163 Speaker: Narrarator Context: At the party where Anna is conversing with Vronsky and people are suspicious Meaning - Even Karenin begins to figure out the Anna-Vronsky affair - Karenin freaks out because he realizes she doesn't love him
"Anna, it's necessary for me to have a talk with you." "With me?" "She looked at him simply... but to Him, knowing her, knowing that whenever he went to bed give minutes later she noticed it and asked him the reason; to hi, knowing that every joy, every pleasure and pain that she felt she communicated to him at once; to him, now to see that she did not care to notice his state of mind, that she did not care to say a word about herself, meant a great deal."
Pg. 166 Speaker: Karenin/Anna/Narrarator Context: Just got back from the party where Anna-Vronsky were flirting and Karenin knows about their relationship and wants to talk about it Meaning: - You can't predict how a conversation will go because you can't control circumstances - Clear that Karenin wants to talk but Anna avoids the conversation - Anna pretends to not to know hat is going on - a lite to herself - For Anna to notice Karenin's bed time she had to be paying attention to him which is a sign of a good marriage - Anna thinks Karenin's lack of frustration is just him caring about outside appearances
"From that time on, A new life began for Aleksey Aleksandrovich and for his wife. Nothing special happened... outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed."
Pg. 169 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Post affair life Meaning - "Nothing special happened" but really everything happened - Karenin's whole view changes - He struggles to talk to his wife - This is the beginning of emotional swings for Karenin the rest of the book
"She was afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her toward it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will."
Pg. 177 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Anna reading on the train on the way back from first meeting Vronsky (On the train heading to Petersburg) Meaning - Anna had a choice to fall in love with Vronsky. It was a choice. Not will. Not fate. Choice. - the myth of fate is what feels like excuses her - Anna has a conscious and forces her to lie to herself unlike Stiva who doesn't have a conscious. - Distorts her view of reality while Stiva's can still be clear
"The Baliff listened attentively... but still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency that said 'that's all very well, but as God wills'... [an] elemental force continually ranged against him for which he could find no expression than "as God wills"
Pg. 177-178 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Levin on the countryside Meaning - Levin wants to improve life of peasants and implement better farming tools - similar to the Q today of how to modernize - Levin open to ideas but implementing them causes him to go up against elemental force. - Elemental Force - the sum of millions of habits in a society that make change very difficult and cause us to face an invisible opposition - the elemental force and complexity of every situation is what causes Levin's new farming techniques to fail
"Oh not over my husband [smiles] I don't know him, I don't think of him. He doesn't exist." "You're not speaking sincerely, I know you. You worry about him too." "Eh, You love another man, and have entered into a criminal liaison with him?" (Mimicking her husband she threw an emphasis on the word criminal) "He's not a man but a machine, and a spiteful machine when he's angry"
Pg. 216-217 Speaker: Anna/Vronsky/Anna Context: Anna is pregnant and Vronsky asks her to leave Karenin Meaning - Even Vronsky is harsh on Anna for her denial of Karenin - Anna is slowly getting to a point where she can't face reality - then, she imitates Karenin. Well it takes a lot of hostile looking to imitate someone... 10,000 tiny moments of hostile looking. - Anna imagines Karenin as a machine so he won't be hurt when she leaves him - Also she convinces herself she has no choice
"Peasant with a sack over his shoulder"
Pg. 71 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Anna at the (Moscow?) train station Meaning - Tolstoy's way of saying everyday moments need to be observed/appreciated and can have a profound impact on life - Anna will have nightmares of there peasant with the sack - Feels like a dream because its so powerful - She saw the peasant but forgot he exists and it floats around in her subconscious
"You would not be frank with me, he seemed to say, mentally addressing her, "so much the worse for you. Now you may beg as you please but I won't be frank with you. He who had been such a concerned father had from the end of that winter become peculiarly cold to his son, and adopted toward him just the same bantering tone he used with his wife 'Aha, young man' was the greeting with which he met him."
Pg. 230 Speaker: Narrarator and Karenin / Narrarator Context: Life with Karenin and Anna post affair Meaning - Karenin beginning to break - Cover for his guilt - Second quote is a camouflaged quote that says a lot - Open Camouflage - Important idea hidden in a tiny moment or clause. Gets us to pay attention and importance of little things
"Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get ahead, that's all there is in his soul, she thought, as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for advancing" "I'm a wicked woman, a lost woman, she thought, I can't endure falsehood while for him its the breath of his life - falsehood. If he were to kill Vronsky I might respect him. No, all he wants is falsehood and propriety."
Pg. 237-238 Speaker: Anna Context: Anna, Karenin, and Vronsky at the racetrack Meaning - How Anna sees Karenin which is a distorted view coming from hostile looking - Anna is deceiving herself. She hurts him and blames him. - Tolstoy later kinda calls her out by saying she never really decided how she wanted her husband to behave
"Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed like gold in sand"
Pg. 299 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Dolly taking care of the kids in the country Meaning: - Dolly is overall in despair - One of the kids has a "bad disposition" which is seen. as a large character flaw - The kids give her small joys for her suffering by helping each other - What makes life beautiful is the small moments like. gold in the sand or sticky green leaves not just dramatic things - Life sometimes gives you golden sand and you need to focus on it to get max happiness. Important line yet undramatic - Moments like kids helping each other... Anna wouldn't appreciate it and Stiva wouldn't. notice but Levin has come to learn
"Happy Families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"
Pg. 3 Speaker: Narrarator Context: First Line of the book Meaning: "All happy families are alike in that they resemble each, all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way" -Morson - Ironic - this can't be the absolute truth - "Happy people have no history" - Roman Proverb - "Interesting" Times make people unhappy - There is no story of happy families - Each story of unhappiness unique - Unhappy families have plot... events, struggles, despair
"The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an affair with their former French governess... And all members of the house were painfully conscious of it... The chef had walked out the day before just at dinner time"
Pg. 3 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Second Paragraph of the book Meaning: The house is in dissaray - Chef leaves at critical moment (when real work starts)\
"Aleksey Aleksandrovich could not hear or see a child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost all power of reflection." [on cases with crying women] "I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room"
Pg. 318 Speaker: Narrator Context: Right before Anna confesses her relations with Vronsky Meaning - This is the key to Karenin's strange behavior - He is so deeply moved by the suffering of others but no capability to handle it. He freaks out
"____________ was one of those people, always a wonder to Levin, whose convictions very logical though never original... while their life [was] almost always in direct contradiction to their convictions."
Pg. 373 Speaker: Narrarator on Levin's thoughts towards Sviazhsky Context: Sviazhsky invites Levin to go shooting, potentially to lure him into falling for his daughter Meaning - Sviazhsky is a hypocrite. Bad.
"The Landowner unmistakably spoke his own individual thought - a thing that rarely happens - and a thought to which he had been brought not by a desire for finding some exercise for an idle brain, but a thought which had grown up out of the conditions of his life, which he had brooded over in the solitude of his village and had considered in every aspect"
Pg. 379 Speaker: Narrarator on Petrovich the landowner Context: Petrovich the landowner, Sviazhsky, and Levin discussing how to farm and deal with peasants most effectively Meaning - Petrovich has some weird views on peasants (like acting like a patriarch for them all and freeing them was bad) - Levin thinks authentic thoughts come from experience. But he also thinks by absorbing Sviahsky's views he can expand his own ideas - Idea: Authentic ideas do not come from what your social class thinks or form dinner views - Theme: Authentic vs. Inauthentic views
"To educate the people three things are needed: Schools and schools and schools"
Pg. 385 Speaker: Sviazhsky Context: Sviazhsky, and Levin discussing how to farm and deal with peasants most effectively Meaning - Building schools doesn't help peasants. They don't want them but the "Elite" don't care - Schools may not make things better, they may in fact make the lives of the peasants worse. But at least schools will give the peasants different needs from the ones they have now. - Superstitions of elite same as peasants
"He vigorously embraced the pillow and buried his face it it but at once he jumped up... When he suddenly realized he was not sleeping in his Wife's room but in his study the smile vanished from his face" "Yes she won't forgive me; she can't forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault--all my fault though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole situation"
Pg. 4 Speaker: Narrator then Stiva Context: 3/4th paragraph of the book Meaning: Stiva is dreaming of dinners, clutching his pillow. Just chillin no problem despite cheating on his wife. - Meanwhile Dolly is super concerned - It is clearly his fault but he blames his enviorment - Unfaithful husbands always bring their wives gifts - he gives her a pear which is the sensualist fruit
"Fresh Oysters have come in." "Ah, Oysters." "They're Flensburg, your Excellency. We've no Ostend... Kasha a la Russe, your honor would like?" "I'm hungry... and I don't imagine that I won't appreciate your choice. I am fond of good things." "I should hope so! After all it's one of the pleasures of life."
Pg. 41-42 Speakers: Tartar, Stiva, Tartar, Levin, Stiva Context: Levin at a fancy restaurant with Oblonsky as a guest Meaning - At this dinner date they are going to talk about the meaning of life/love/truth - Waiter throws another tablecloth on - a performance at a high caliber restaurant - Oysters are a sign of affluence, they begin to make unnecessary distinctions to feel elite - Exhibiting/acquiring knowledge is great importance to elite - "A la Russe" is an unnecessary fancy language usage - Stiva insists calling items in Russian instead of French (even though the waiter has to say it in French) Even though they are In Russia
"She drew a long face and, half closing her eyes, quickly transformed her expression... and in her face Vronsky saw the very expression with which Aleksey Alexandrovich had bowed to him... and again he could not help mimicking him: Anna, Ma chere Anna my dear" "He's not a man, he's an official machine."
Pg. 411 Speaker: Narrator Context: Anna and Vronsky talking after Karenin. has banned. bringing Vronsky to the house and Vronsky has snuck in Meaning: - Karenin's rule is that Anna can't bring Vronsky to the house - Anna talks with Vronsky about it - Anna imitates Karenin's expression and laughs (hostile looking) - Anna roasts Karenin for allowing Vronsky in the house - Calls him unhuman - Anna describes peasant from dreams (connection to when she saw peasant for 1st time. when she met Vronsky (Anna sees it as an omen)
"Aleksey Aleksandrovich stopped short and turned white. He felt distinctly now how intensely he had longed for her death." "I tried to hate you and could not forget about her that used to be. I'm not that woman. Now I'm my real self. I'm dying now, I know I shall die." "A blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life trying to follow enjoined him to forgive and love his enemies; but a happy feeling of love and forgiveness filled his heart"
Pg. 466-471 Speaker: Narrarator/Anna/Narrarator Context: Karenin came to Anna by responding to her telegram that she is dying (she is giving birth) Meaning: - Anna delivers the baby safely ---> Karenin realizes how badly he wanted her to die - Idea: You are more evil than your enemy so you should just feel bad for them and forgive them - Anna has been asking for Karenin which puts him in power position over the crying Vronsky - He feels Christian love - but it can't persist the same way romantic love can't persist. - Implied that if you feel Christian love heights you fill fall just as far
"He forgave Vronsky and pitied him [for suicide attempt]... he felt more for his son than before and he blamed himself to taking too little interest in him... [and baby Annie] would certainly have died if he had not troubled about her"
Pg. 478 Speaker: Narrator Context: Karenin living in a world of Christian love and spiritual fulfillment Meaning: - How to love your enemy --> feeling you are worse than they are - Karenin saves a life (baby Annie)
"I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices but I hate him for his virtues"
Pg. 486 Speaker: Anna Context: Anna talking to Stiva after experiencing Karenin's Christian love Meaning: - Anna flips cliche - Anna really just hates Karenin for being better than her - Karenin offers Anna a divorce where he is guilty and she gets kids, and she refuses - Anna lies later that she had to choose between her lover (Vronsky) and kids
"Stepan Arkadyevich was a truthful man with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not feel repentant that he, a handsome woman-prone man of thirty four was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children and only a year younger than himself... He had even supposed that she... a worn out woman no longer young or good-looking and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother ought to take an indulgent view"
Pg. 5-6 Speaker: Narrarator (through 3rd person stream of consciousness with Stiva's thoughts. Allows reader to see perspective of character) Context: Beginning of book Stiva working through his thoughts about cheating and his marriage Meaning: - He believes its natural for him to cheat even if his wife is 5/7 on living kids - He never considered what she thought. Evil for not putting himself in her shoes - "Merely a good mother" - Meh to Stiva but crazy important to Tolstoy because children pick up on parent's habits. - Stiva embodies evil - ordinary evil - evil without malice or what you don't do - Dolly embodies good - heroine - Stiva is dishonest - makes promises in the moment but forgets to actually do it. Neglect of other people
"You're very much all of a piece. That's your strong point and you're falling. You want the whole of life to be a piece - but that's not how it is. all the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."
Pg. 51 Speaker: Stiva to Levin Context: Levin at a fancy restaurant with Oblonsky as a guest Meaning - Stiva believes Levin thins everything should be clean - EX: way more to being a professor than teaching/research - Love is complicated, can't be fairytale - We should take aesthetic pleasure in the mess. To take pleasure in the meeting not associated with your job. Gets rid of the whole moral issues and leaves pleasure
"He had a ready appreciation of art, and for accurately and tastefully imitating it... and drew his inspiration not directly from life but indirectly from life embodied in art."
Pg. 529-530 Speaker: Narrarator on Vronsky Context: Vronsky struggling to make it as a real artist Meaning - Vronsky makes counterfeit art. Inspiration from art not life. - Like Sviahsky's view on life, its fake. - If you are a good reader or viewer of life you can make good stuff - Unlike Mikhailov who draws from real life and can make great art
"Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be... he was happy but entering upon family life he saw at every step he experience what a man who after admiring the smooth happy course of the little boat on a lake should get himself into the boat... [but it wasn't sitting still and he had to row which caused it]... to look east but that doing it though very delightful was very difficult
Pg. 545-546 Speaker: Narrarator on Levin Context: Levin's first taste of marriage life Meaning: - Levin is learning what a good family dad/husband looks like - He had an idealized view of what its like - It's not all pretty but it a daily working on the marriage - but it is delightful and long lasting (prosaic love) - Kitty knows what Levin's struggles are because she has watching him lovingly
"Dolly, How glad am I to see you... He Has told me... I'm simply sorry, sorry from my heart for you." "Do you think he realizes the horror of my position? Not in the slightest!" "He's to be pitied, weighed down by remorse." "Is he capable of remorse?" "Yes, I know him... (and here Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most).. he's tortured by two things: that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and loving you beyond everything on Earth."
Pg. 79-82 Speaker: Anna/Dolly Context: Anna trying to convince Dolly to forgive Stiva for cheating on her Meaning - Anna pretends to care about Dolly - Dolly asks important Q: Can Stiva feel remorse? Probably not - Anna of course likes to manipulate Dolly - Anna understands she needs to tell dolly whatever Dolly needs to hear - Anna is likely not ignorant to what Stiva is like - Anna isn't lying necessarily... just saying false things effectively (like politicians) - Dolly realizes Stiva's instant pleasure life is very shallow
"She knew what she had to do... but the red bag delayed her" "At the instant she was terror-strikes at what she was doing. Where am I? What am I doing? What for?"
Pg. 867 Speaker: Narrarator/a bit of Anna Context: Anna about to commit suicide Meaning - Not Tolstoy foreshadowing from guy getting crushed by train earlier - Anna foreshadowing by believing in omens - planning suicide - Tolstoy saying our body has a mind of its own (including saving handbag) - Brings back past joys of childhood but she hasn't been paying attention to this because she is an expert in not paying attention - She instantly regrets committing suicide and suffers most in her final moments
"Anna was not in lilac, as kitty so urgently wished, but in a black low-cut velvet gown showing her full shoulders and bosom... Her coiffure was not striking. All that was noticeable was the little willful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about her neck and temples. Around her finely chiseled, strong neck was a thread of pearls."
Pg. 92 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Kitty observing Anna before the ball Meaning - Anna dresses very nice on purpose - Hair is tied up sexy but impractical - "simple and natural" - but you won't find it at Walmart. Fake simplicity like her brother Stiva
"Anna looked at her with drooping eyelids and smiled. But noticing that Kitty only responded to her smile only with a look of despair and amazement, she turned away from here and began gaily talking to the other lady."
Pg. 96-97 Speaker: Narrarator Context: Anna at the Ballroom flirting with Vronsky Meaning - Kitty is thinking how in the world could Anna act this way with Vronsky but act like they are friends - Kitty can't forgive that deception
"Excuse me, but I'm absolutely unable to comprehend how after my dinner go straight to a baker's shop and steal a roll... Don't steal rolls." "Both kinds of love... some men understand only one kind and others the other... and in platonic love there can be no tragedy"
Speaker: Levin, Stiva Context: Levin at a fancy restaurant with Oblonsky as a guest Meaning - Stiva has "all the pleasures at once" - Levin imagines women as family - but Stiva sees women as pleasure - Levin doesn't think everyone should think like him but he does share his own thoughts - Platonic love = spiritual love