I Love Those Sticky Little Leaves

Spring! Somehow these are the most moving words I’ve ever read. Every budding tree I see in spring makes me hear them in my mind.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Brothers Karamazov:

“Alyosha, my boy, so I want to live and go on living, even if it’s contrary to the rules of logic.

Even if I do not believe in the divine order of things, the sticky young leaves emerging from their buds in the spring are dear to my heart; so is the blue sky and so are some human beings, even though I often don’t know why I like them. … I’ll get drunk on my own emotion.

I love those sticky little leaves and the blue sky, that’s what! You don’t love those things with reason, with logic, you love them with your innards, with your belly.”