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Anna Karenina: I was eighteen when I got married, but it was not love.
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Countess Nordston: Anna isn't a criminal, but she broke the rules!
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Countess Nordston: Would you die for love, Konstantin Dmitrich?
Levin: I would. But not for my neighbour's wife.
[pause]
Levin: An impure love is not love, to me. To admire another man's wife is a pleasant thing, but sensual desire indulged for its own sake is greed, a kind of gluttony, and a misuse of something sacred which is given to us so that we may choose the one person with whom to fulfill our humanness. Otherwise we might as well be cattle.
Countess Nordston: Ah, an idealist!
[laughter erupts]
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Countess Lydia: Your husband is a saint and we must all cherish him for Russias sake.
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Alexei Karenin: We are bound together by god and this can only be broken by a crime against god!
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Alexei Karenin: I must warn you about something!
Anna Karenina: Warn me?
Alexei Karenin: You may, by indiscretion, give the world occasion to talk about you.
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Alexei Karenin: Do you think I would let you have my son?
Alexei Karenin: You are depraved!
Alexei Karenin: A woman without honor!
Alexei Karenin: And this is what you want!
Alexei Karenin: Do you know what you want?
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Prince Tverskoy: The man who can't govern his wife, has gone as far as he can go in government.
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Alexei Karenin: It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.
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Anna Karenina: If you have any thought for me you will give me back my peace!
Count Vronsky: There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.
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Count Vronsky: I love you!
Anna Karenina: Why?
Count Vronsky: You can't ask Why about love!
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Nikolai Levin: Romantic love will be the last delusion of the old order.
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Alexei Karenin: I tried to save her. She chose him.
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Anna Karenina: I am not ashamed of who I am or what I've done. Are you ashamed for me?
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Alexei Karenin: Is this about my wife? My wife is beyond reproach. She is, after all, my wife.
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Alexei Karenin: You begged me for my forgiveness.
Anna Karenina: But I didn't die and now I have to live with it.
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Alexei Karenin: What did I do to deserve this?
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Levin: You are on the wrong side of history. Not because privilege is immoral,
[spits]
Levin: but because it's irrational.
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Alexei Karenin: I consider jealously to be insulting to you and degrading to me. I have no right to inquire into your feelings. They concern only your conscience.
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Levin: [observing his servants] They look happier than I've ever been. Is it living simply that I'm looking for?
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Alexei Karenin: [Anna is in bed. Alexie Karenin is getting ready for bed. Anna listens apprehensively to the little noises of Karenin's pre-coital preparations] ... not that I care for decorations but...
Anna Karenina: Alexei... I can't... I'm sorry... But I'm his wife now. I am having his child.
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Anna Karenina: But I'm damned anyway.
Count Vronsky: I'm not. I'm blessed.
Anna Karenina: You love me.
Count Vronsky: Yes.
Anna Karenina: Only me.
Count Vronsky: No.
Anna Karenina: Apart from Frou-Frou.
Count Vronsky: Yes.
Anna Karenina: But me more than your horse?
Count Vronsky: Yes.
Anna Karenina Quotes
Extended Reading
