How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph). We used Constance Garnett's translation.
Quote #7
"Why, you ... speak somehow like a book," she said, and again there was a note of irony in her voice. (2.6.118)
The idea of an older man "saving" a prostitute by rallying her moral awareness is in fact a common theme in Russian literature. So Liza is right; there is something romantic and ridiculous about all this.
Quote #8
Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. (2.10.23)
The Underground Man's claim that books dictate how we live is absurd, given that he's admitted already his own retreat from reality and into the world of literature. Living according to books is very much at odds with real living.
Quote #9
We are oppressed at being men – men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. (2.10.23)
This may be where we most clearly hear Dostoevsky addressing readers directly – unfiltered and unadulterated. The problem with romanticism – with living life concerned only with "the beautiful and sublime" – is that we remove ourselves from reality, much like the Underground Man.