Strange Life of Ivan Osokin

the whole of life is a petty struggle with petty difficulties

Life is not particularly pleasant for anyone.

If only I could begin again from the beginning! I know now that I should do everything differ ently.

I can’t express it clearly to you, but I feel as though I had cut myself off from life. All you other people are moving on while I am standing still. It looks as though I had wanted to shape my life in my own way but had only succeeded in breaking it to pieces. The rest of you are going along by the ordinary ways.

on the wall, portraits of Shakespeare and Pushkin

“There are times when it seems to me that I remember something,” he says to himself slowly, “and others when it seems that I’ve forgotten something very important. I feel as though all this had happened before in the past. But when? I don’t know. How strange.”