Robert Teeter

“That debauchery was not a good thing in a married man did not even occur to him [Tsar Nicholas I], and he would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it. But, even though he was convinced that he had acted as he ought, he was left with some sort of unpleasant aftertaste, and, to stifle that feeling, he began thinking about something that always soothed him: about what a great man he was.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murád

“You have just confirmed to me that one of the most fortunate purposes of literature is to bring like-minded people together and get them talking.”
― Laurence Cossé, A Novel Bookstore

“Elena Pavlovna was for him [Tsar Nicholas I] the personification of those empty people who talked not only about science and poetry, but also about governing people, imagining that they could govern themselves better than he, Nicholas, governed them.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murád

“In previous years, they might have spent hours in the cellar, on their feet, never seeing the time go by nor feeling their legs, and they would go back upstairs at closing time enthralled, radiant, a bit drunk, and there were more and more of them who, when they got back to Paris or Basel, would tell those around them, 'I only ever buy my books in Meribel now, once a year; obviously I've had to change my suitcase (my car / my leisure time / my life)' . . . .”
― Laurence Cossé, A Novel Bookstore