“Enough!” he said solemnly and resolutely. “I’m through with delusions, imaginary terrors, and phantom visions! Life is real! Haven’t I lived just now? My life hasn’t come to an end with the death of the old woman! May she rest in peace—enough, time you leave me in peace, madam. Now begins the reign of reason and light and—and of will and strength—and we’ll see now! We’ll try our strength now,” he added arrogantly, as though challenging some dark power."
from Part II chapter 7

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"And what if I run away?" asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.

"No, you won't run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man's thought, for you've only to show him the end of your little finger and he'll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you've ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away, you'd come back to yourself. You can't get on without us."
from Part VI, Chapter 2

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"With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect—she did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window."
from PART VI chapter 4

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"What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That's only a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them."
from Part V, Chapter 4

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"I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murder--that's nonsense--I didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right..."
from Part V chapter 4

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"Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? 'A crime! a crime!' Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It's simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!"

"Brother, brother, what are you saying! Why, you have shed blood!" cried Dounia in despair.

"Which all men shed," he put in almost frantically, "which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind."
from Part VI chapter 7


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This is my favorite among Dostoevsky's last great novels. In it the reader finds a man filled with fear, desperation, and anguish. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is a shockingly intimate tale of a murder and a murderer. Raskolnikov is a man seemingly on the brink of madness as he plots and carries out a grisly killing. Although he evades the police, Raskolnikov's dark deed weighs heavily on him (in a way reminiscent of Poe's The Tell-tale Heart). The aftermath of his crime takes the young man on a journey through the range of human emotion and experience. Good and evil, guilt and redemption, agony and joy—this novel is an invitation to explore and question many of the ideas and judgments we take for granted.The characterization and discussion of ideas in both this novel and Dostoevsky's final work, The Brothers Karamazov are as good as any in literature. If you like Hamlet, Les Miserables or War & Peace you will like this book. ( )

I read this in college. And it was the only book I ever read in about 3 days with no trouble - and I was an English major. I thought this is a masterful story of psychology and guilt. A precursor to American Psycho. Okay, maybe stretching it. It's been 11 years since I read this. Time for a re-read. ( )

One of my fave's by one of my fave's. Must reread soon... ( )