I am weary of this notion of faithfulness to a point of view at all cost. Life around us is ever-changing, and I believe that one should try to change one’s slant accordingly—at least once every ten years. The great heroic devotion to one point of view is very alien to me—it’s a lack of humility. Mayakovsky killed himself because his pride would not be reconciled with something new happening within himself—or around him.

— Boris Pasternak

I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. Furthermore, it will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies.

— Boris Pasternak

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless, and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

— Boris Pasternak

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless, and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

— Boris Pasternak

I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

— Boris Pasternak

If it's so painful to love and absorb electricity, how much more painful it is to be a woman, to be the electricity, to inspire love.

— Boris Pasternak

Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.

— Boris Pasternak

In a single wave of meaning the triumphant purity of being.

— Boris Pasternak

In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it.

— Boris Pasternak

It is she who has a hold on him. Doesn't she see how much he needs her? She has nothing to be afraid of, her conscience is clear. It is he who should be ashamed, and terrified of her giving him away. But that is just what she will never do. To do this she does not have the necessary ruthlessness--Komarovsky's chief asset in dealing with subordinates and weaklings. This is precisely the difference between them. And it is this that makes the whole of life so terrifying. Does it crush you by thunder and lightning? No, by oblique glances and whispered calumny. It is all treachery and ambiguity. Any single thread is as fragile as a cobweb, but just try to pull yourself out of the net, you only become more entangled. And the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble.

— Boris Pasternak