The Brothers Karamazov

There are so many potent scenes in the Brothers Karamazov it's hard to know where to even begin. One of my favorite parts was the dialog between the old man Karamazov and the Elder Zosima near the beginning of the book. Both argued so masterfully and with such humor that it was hard not to root for them both. I really didn't expect to find myself laughing out loud so much at anything by Dostoevsky.

A taste of the humor:

Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck–the paps especially. When you said just now, ‘Don't be so ashamed of yourself, for that is at the root of it all,' you pierced right through me by that remark, and read me to the core...If I had only been sure that every one would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been then! Teacher!” he fell suddenly on his knees, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”

It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or really moved.

Father Zossima, lifting his eyes, looked at him, and said with a smile:

“You have known for a long time what you must do. You have sense enough: don't give way to drunkenness and incontinence of speech; don't give way to sensual lust; and, above all, to the love of money. And close your taverns. If you can't close all, at least two or three. And, above all–don't lie.”

“And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.' In thousands of agonies–I exist. I'm tormented on the rack–but I exist! Though I sit alone on a pillar–I exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”

“God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for a fault from a woman you love. From one you love especially, however greatly you may have been in fault. For a woman–devil only knows what to make of a woman! I know something about them, anyway. But try acknowledging you are in fault to a woman. Say, ‘I am sorry, forgive me,' and a shower of reproaches will follow! Nothing will make her forgive you simply and directly, she'll humble you to the dust, bring forward things that have never happened, recall everything, forget nothing, add something of her own, and only then forgive you. And even the best, the best of them do it. She'll scrape up all the scrapings and load them on your head. They are ready to flay you alive, I tell you, every one of them, all these angels without whom we cannot live!”