How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph). We used Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's translation.
Quote #13
"You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a ghost [...] You are the embodiment of myself, but of just one side of me...of my thoughts and feelings, but only the most loathsome and stupid of them. [...]" (11.9.10)
At this late point in the novel, Ivan begins to recognize how his skepticism is really the product of the worst parts of himself, as his attack on his own devil shows.
Quote #14
"There are things that are even worse, even more ruinous in such cases [...] if we are, for example, possessed by a certain, so to speak, artistic game, by the need for artistic production, so to speak, the creation of a novel, especially seeing the wealth of psychological gifts with which God has endowed our abilities [...] psychology, gentlemen, though a profound thing, is still a stick with two ends [...] Psychology prompts novels even from the most serious people." (2.10.3)
The novel has a thing against psychology as a scientific explanation for human behavior. The defense attorney Fetyukovich demonstrates how the prosecutor Kirillovich is led to the mistaken conclusion that Dmitri is the real murderer through his appeal to psychology.