# Quote — Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

> "How wonderful to be alive," he thought. "But why does it always hurt?"

- Author: [Boris Pasternak](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak.md)
- Book: [Doctor Zhivago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak#Doctor_Zhivago_(1957)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago/how-wonderful-to-be-alive

## More from this book

> My own heart would have concealed it from me, for failure to love is almost like murder and I would have been incapable of inflicting such a blow on anyone.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago/my-own-heart.md)

> And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness...

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago/and-so-it-turned.md)

> Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Solovyov or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/boris-pasternak/doctor-zhivago/gregariousness-is-always.md)