Ten Quotes from Anna Karenina That Will Make You a Better Writer
And Make You Want to Read (Reread) it
Many writers view Leo Tolstoy as the best writer in the world. Booker Prize winner Tom Keneally put it well: “Tolstoy was one of those annoying people of genius who performed in the 19th century the ultimate tricks that the rest of us are now stuck with trying to perform imperfectly and on humbler scale!”
What is it that makes him so great? Was it his character depictions, his painting of scenes, his psychological insight?
E. M. Forster tried to answer this question: “Great chords begin to sound and we cannot say exactly what struck them,” he said. “They do not arise from the story… They do not come from the episodes nor yet from the characters. They come from the immense area of Russia… Many novelists have the feeling for place… very few have the sense of space, and the possession of it ranks high in Tolstoy’s divine equipment.”
Below are quotes from Anna Karenina that shine with the brilliance particular to Tolstoy, but to get the most out of them as writers, we must dig deep and pull out these scenes, dust away all our notions of what we think writing is, and try to see how Tolstoy does it. There are as many answers to what makes Anna Karenina so good as there are readers. Reading one page is…
