Doctor Zhivago Literature and Writing Quotes

Nikolai Nikolaevich isn't one to shy away from controversy. Unfortunately, the poor guy needs to make some compromises for government censors if he ever plans on getting his book published. Censorship was the norm in Russia both before and after the Russian Revolution. Pasternak himself had to publish Doctor Zhivago in Italy because the Soviets wouldn't let him publish it in his own country.

From his high school years onward, Yuri Zhivago has dreams of writing important books based on all of the amazing things he's seen and the thoughts he's had. Like many young people, Zhivago thinks that his ideas are all completely original and extremely meaningful. And this is a feeling that he continues to hold on to into adulthood, in a way that the book suggests we should admire.

In the eyes of Nikolai, history is something that humanity has invented in order to comfort itself against the fact that all things must eventually come to an end. Whether it's the end of an individual human life or of humanity in general, there will eventually be an end. History books, though, always seem to suggest that the story will go on forever.

When his foster mother Anna passes away, Yuri is grateful for the fact that he'll get a break from family and university responsibilities so he can work on his poetry writing. That said, he also plans on dedicating much of this writing to the memory of his foster mother, so it's not totally self-interested.

While he's working as a doctor at the front in World War I, Zhivago finds out through the grapevine that his buddies back in Moscow have published some of his writings without his permission. The published work has become really popular and made Zhivago something of a literary star.

You can tell how significant literature has been in Zhivago's life by the way he constantly uses it to make sense of what's happening in the world around him. Even when he thinks of the Russian Revolution, he can't help but think of it in terms of famous authors like Tolstoy or Pushkin. In his mind, these are the people who've truly written the history of Russia. The people doing the fighting are just playing out what these great thinkers have already figured out.

Zhivago is content to have a job and grow his own food. But it's just not enough on its own. He can't help but feel like he needs to be part of something bigger than himself, and he satisfies this urge by trying to produce literature that will live on after he's gone. And as we learn at the end of this book, this is exactly what he accomplishes.

When he sits down to write at night, Zhivago doesn't set himself any specific goals. He expresses his passion just by sitting there and writing, hour after hour, until he gets too tired and falls asleep. For him, it's the process of writing that's important, not just the finished product.

One night, during a fit of inspiration, Zhivago sits down and writes out some of his best and most memorable poems. As we find out immediately after, though, none of these poems survived after his death, and no one knows what happened to them. Now, why is that? It's probably because of Soviet censorship. Zhivago couldn't publish these poems. Chances are, they were confiscated and destroyed by Soviet officials. Because of that, they'll never see the light of day.

For Zhivago, language isn't just some tool we use to communicate our inner thoughts. It's a living thing with its own inner energy. And here's the trippy part: language might speak through us more than we actually speak it. Mind… blown.