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Natasha Rostov: When I finally say I love you to any man and really mean it, it will be like a defeated general who's lost all his troops, surrendering and handing his sword to the enemy.
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Natasha Rostov: Did you notice he almost never smiles? While I was singing, I turned around suddenly and caught him looking at me and he was smiling then. And I felt - but it's almost impossible to describe - I felt as if someone had given me the most enormous, beautiful present.
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Natasha Rostov: Nicholas.
Nicholas Rostov: Yes?
Natasha Rostov: The expression on my face.
Nicholas Rostov: What about it?
Natasha Rostov: Do I look disdainful?
Nicholas Rostov: No!
Natasha Rostov: You're impossible! I'm sure I look disdainful.
Nicholas Rostov: Well, what do you want to look disdainful for?
Natasha Rostov: Well, I thought if I looked bored and disdainful nobody would notice that this is the first ball I've ever been to... How's this? Better?
Nicholas Rostov: Oh, that's much better.
Natasha Rostov: Good.
-
Natasha Rostov: Nicholas.
Nicholas Rostov: What now?
Natasha Rostov: Is everybody looking at me?
Nicholas Rostov: Well, can't you see for yourself?
Natasha Rostov: Not without changing the expression on my face.
Nicholas Rostov: Natasha, you know, there's one awful thing about you.
Natasha Rostov: Tell it to me! Tell me the whole truth.
Nicholas Rostov: No girl I'll ever meet will ever be able to amuse me as much as you do.
Natasha Rostov: Shh... Don't talk like that.
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Pierre Bezukhov: I have sinned, Lord, but I have several excellent excuses.
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Pierre Bezukhov: You can't hate something you've never known or understood.
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Gen. Kutuzov: The only important battle is the last.
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Platon Karatsev: [explaining why a boy was executed] Where there's law, there's injustice.
[to his dog]
Platon Karatsev: C'mon, boy, get up, get up!
[to Pierre]
Platon Karatsev: But the maggot eats the cabbage - yet dies first.
Pierre Bezukhov: What did you say?
Platon Karatsev: I say things happen not as we plan them but as God judges.
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Pierre Bezukhov: There are only two things in life that are really wrong: remorse and illness. When I've recovered from them both, I'll go out in the world again.
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Pierre Bezukhov: [Before the Battle of Borodino] Such an enormous event! All our lives will be different from now on because of what is going to happen here tomorrow.
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Platon Karatsev: [about the camp followers of Napoleon's retreating army] Russian women!
Pierre Bezukhov: They're the lice that live on the conquerors. They have to leave or die.
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Gen. Kutuzov: [about retreating from Moscow] Russia's ancient and sacred capitol? Allow me to tell you, Your Excellency, that that question has no meaning for a Russian! Such a question cannot be put! It's senseless! The question I've asked you and these gentlemen to meet and discuss is a military one! The question is of saving Russia! Is it better to give up Moscow without a battle or, by accepting battle, lose the army as well as Moscow? Well, gentlemen, I see I am the one who has to pay for the broken crockery. Gentlemen, I've heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me, but I , by the authority entrusted to me by my sovereign and my country... order a retreat.
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Gen. Kutuzov: [to himself] Time and patience. Patience and time. The Grand Army is wounded, but is it mortally wounded? An apple should not be plucked while it's green. Patience and time.
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Napoleon: I warn you, gentlemen; I cannot sit here much longer - watching my army decay!
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Napoleon: [Thinking to himself as he gazes through the window] Already the wild geese are flying south. What if we are trapped here through winter?
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Platon Karatsev: [to the French soldier who is about to execute him during the retreat] Are you afraid too, friend?
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Dolokhov: [about French prisoners] Take them away! You know what to do with them!
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[last lines]
Natasha Rostov: [to Pierre] You're like this house. You suffer, you show your wounds, but you stand.
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Prince Bolkonsky: You're over thirty! By the time a man's over thirty, life should be sad, meaningless and hopeless!
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Pierre Bezukhov: [opens the bedroom drapes, while his spoiled wife sleeps on] Come on, Helene! We've got lots to do if we want to leave for the country.
Helene Kuragina: [very sleepy] Oh Pierre, it's so early!
[he kisses her, and she gets a crafty look on her face]
Helene Kuragina: Besides, it's so boring in the country.
Pierre Bezukhov: [Seriously] I'm sorry, my dear, but I promised those peasants I'd come and see them. They need a new hospital, and a new school, and many other things besides.
Helene Kuragina: [very spoiled] Well they can starve just as well without a school, and they can die just as well without a hospital!
[catches herself, changes her tune]
Helene Kuragina: Pierre, why don't you go on without me? You can do what you have to do, and I'll come visit you in a few months time.
[Slyly]
Helene Kuragina: You'll appreciate me so much more after a few months of sleeping alone.
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Natasha Rostov: It's so unfair. Men are the only people permitted to have any fun.
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Pierre Bezukhov: Each morning I wake up, I'm disgusted with myself with what I did the night before. I tell myself, "Today, a change."
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Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: There must be something you want to do.
Pierre Bezukhov: I want to discover... everything! I want to discover why I know what's right and still do what's wrong. I want to discover what happiness is, and what value there is in suffering. I want to discover why men go to war, and what they really say deep in their hearts when they pray. I want to discover what men and women feel when they say they love.
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Natasha Rostov: When you're young, everybody's always telling you you'll change.
War and Peace Quotes
Extended Reading
