War and Peace

After abruptly choosing to read The Great Gatsby, I've been strangely compelled to read more of the classics. Yesterday, I picked up Tolstoy's War and Peace. It's supposed to be one of the greatest novels ever written so how could I go wrong? At over 1400 pages, it's long. I'm afraid I will forget all of the my favorite parts so I thought I'd quote them here, as I find them. I'd be interested to hear opinions on the excerpts.

War and Peace, Tolstoy, Penguin Classics version.

Page 30, last paragraph. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is speaking to his friend Pierre Bezuhov:

"Never, never marry, my dear fellow. That is my advice to you - don't marry until you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of doing, and until you cease to love the woman of your choice and see her plainly, as she really is; or else you will be making a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing. Otherwise everything that is fine and noble in you will be thrown away. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes, yes, yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry while you still have any hopes of yourself you will be made to feel at every step that for you all is over, every door closed but that of the drawing-room, where you will stand on the same level as the court lackey and the idiot... But what is the good?..."

I've heard speeches like this before, no less emphatic for their lack of artful construction. It's very sad to think people feel this way. Trapped in a commitment they made. How does one get to this point? How does one allow things to get to this point?